Autonomic discrete business activity management method

ABSTRACT

Discrete Business Activity Management is a method whereby continuous streams of data formatted in one or more taxonomies, originating from two or more networked entity domain nodes within a Grid Framework or equivalent, are extracted at two or more independent times and synchronized to an assigned time index, then translated into each other&#39;s taxonomy or harmonized, securely filtered and, routed thereby creating a universal or federated view of business activity over time, which may be viewed in the context of any single domain. An apparatus which performs DBAM consists of processing, storage and network hardware and software, along with software which integrates the function of the DBAM within a Grid Framework or equivalent. The apparatus is further configured as a service for sale to subscribers through the addition of administrative software architecture to manage subscriber access, proprietary information, data element integrity and quality of service in connection with distributed applications.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to Provisional Application Ser. No.60/480,927, filed Jun. 23, 2003, the benefit of the filing date of whichis hereby claimed under 35 U.S.C. §119(e).

BACKGROUND

Field

The invention relates to the virtual operational management of discreteattributes between multiple commercial goods or service transactingentities for the purpose of significantly enhancing business operatingperformance. These entities may conduct business within, but are notlimited to, any of the following vertical industry segments:Telecommunications and Network Infrastructure; Electronics; Aerospace;Automotive; Life Sciences; Distribution; Chemicals; Energy; Government;Food and Beverage

The invention may also be embedded within new or enhanced productsserving the above verticals by traditional providers of financial,manufacturing, insurance or other commercially contracted “outsourced”services.

Related Art

Though the division of labor following the outlaw of monopolisticpractices in the 20^(th) century has brought favorable competition andinnovation, it has created one of the key limitations in the struggle toachieve even greater operating efficiencies across groups of interactingbusinesses. Specialization, even within traditionally “internal”business processes, continues to multiply the number of enterpriseinterfaces necessary to bring a single product to market, and with eachinterface, further splinters firewalled mission critical elements ofbusiness intelligence. As communication technology improves, thissplintering trend will accelerate, along with the need to strategically,selectively and securely reassemble distributed intelligence to enhanceor create new, more efficient business models, and fuel the next roundof industrial productivity.

One technology embodiment enabling the invention is the “Grid” and itsapplication to business solutions beyond its typical application as anetworked or stand alone slave compute and storage facility. The Gridforms a basis for a significant differentiator in the future approach tointeractive web-based services for commercial businesses. A product ofthe National Science Foundation's Middleware Initiative, GridTechnologies define a core enabling paradigm for the invention. Theevolution of the Grid, a product of the Internet and Grid Technologies,supports the application of Grid Technologies to business process,forming one embodiment of the foundation for the invention. Gridprotocols, defined through the Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA, thestandards embodying the Grid, also represented by the Globus Standard)provide a standardized foundation to synchronously, securely andautonomously manage compute and storage resources regardless of theirlocation, and entity ownership. These protocols bind to internetprotocols which create the foundation of Grid Services. Collectively,these “services” enable enterprise or distributed applications which maybe written to include standard services, “customized Grid services,” oradditional programming abstractions and are collectively managed by anadministrative host.

A second enabling technology forming one embodiment of the invention isthe release of the Globus Toolkit (3.0) which embodies the Gridstandard. The emergence of Grid protocol standards have also partiallyeliminated what in the past was one of the greatest and most costlydetractors of integrating systems—customizing software code to bridgedissimilar systems and architectures. By creating standard protocols,the Grid Forum has enabled hardware and software manufacturers to “Gridenable” their products. Now applications written to exploit Gridcapabilities can be written incorporating standard or custom Gridservices.

A third enabling technology for the invention is network security.Secure data transmission, intrusion detection, and encryption arerequired elements for the protection and distribution of sensitiveinformation.

A fourth enabling factor for the invention is the emergence of the BaselCapital Accord II regulatory standards by the Federal Reserve and theG-8. The Basel Capital Accord II standards focus amongst other things onthe discrete management of operating risk within the loan portfolios ofregulated commercial banks. Because typical loan adjudication processesare lender specific, the Fed has few standards to apply to enforceuniform risk policy, and thus relies mostly on heuristic guidelines forconformance, such as those supplied by professional organizations suchas Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), or the CommercialFinance Association (CFA). The invention has been partially disclosed toa member of the Federal Reserve System Task Force on Internal CreditRisk Models within the Federal Reserve Bank of Washington, D.C. andfavorably received. The Fed is looking to industry to attempt to supplysome finite number of acceptable solutions which they can specify. Toincentive lenders to comply, the Fed has also proposed the lowering ofreserves for banks that can demonstrate an acceptable operating riskmanagement scheme before 2005.

A fifth enabling factor for the invention is the motivation on the partof lenders to find new ways of measuring, monitoring and developingcompetitive, loan products—safely. Discrete asset risk managementenables direct asset conversion risk assignment to be calculated andapplied to discrete asset purchases, previously impossible andimpractical. Asset risk conversion has payment and performance riskimplications within most banks lending formulas and allowsquantification of risk and “cherry picking” (discerning lower risk forgreater profit opportunity over competing lenders) for improvement inloan “classification” and thus in loan margins through sound analysis oftheir underlying risk. The invention adds a fourth loan classificationbeyond (1) company sector, (2) historical financials, (3) loan officerjudgment, by which to determine creditworthiness. The invention alsoprovides an extremely proactive and cost effective platform for activeloan monitoring.

A sixth enabling factor for the invention is the industry-recognizedneed to find a solution that will support the outsourced solution ofproduction procurement. The invention provides the three key serviceprovider accountability elements which have prevented the paradigm frombeing adopted on a mass-scale: accountability to service provider “bestprice”, stochastic delivery assurance, and comprehensive qualityassurance alert and response.

A seventh enabling factor for the invention is the beginning ofacceptance of the concept of autonomic computing and the proliferationof the Grid. This is simply that applications, deployed within in a Gridnetwork, will begin to do the lower level repetitive tasks, formerlydone by people. The invention may embody some elements of an intelligentrule base.

An eighth enabling factor for the invention is the trend in softwareacquisition to “rent” rather than purchase and own software (software asa service, or SAAS). A huge financial benefit resulting from theoutsourcing of many company operations and services is that they may beaccounted for on a variable cost basis. This scheme lowers a servicecustomer's break even level, making them more apt to survivefluctuations in business. The invention is designed to viably functionwithin a “rent by the bit, rent by time or rent by node environment” andcan be also be incorporated within a service provider's fee base—tosupport a higher level on-demand value add service to an end customer.

A ninth and most general enabling factor for the invention is theextreme pressure placed upon companies to expand profit margins. This isaccomplished by incurring successively lower costs of product for thesame revenue dollar. The largest impacting (typically) source of costwithin an organization is what it pays for purchased assets andservices. These require constant attention to successfully manage withconstantly fewer resources.

It is the object of the invention is to create a discrete businessactivity management (DBAM) engine service capability, spanning acrosspartner business entities and to selectively and universally, reassemblecritical business intelligence—lost through the division oflabor—sanctioned by the DBAM engine subscribers on a scale impossible tohumanly reproduce—to create the most cost effective and cost impactingmechanism for the instantaneous management of business attributes. Sincepurchased assets, services and discretionary expense, including payrolland capital, typically represent the largest component of a company'sprofits and losses, and have a significant impact on cash flow, it onlymakes sense that they should be managed with the highest level ofbusiness intelligence.

SUMMARY

An autonomic discrete business activity management method embodying acore engine which may be linked, with accompanying administrativecontrols, to applications which are primarily designed to explicitlyyield favorable impact to a business' profits and losses or balancesheet, or offer new revenue services which may be resold to enterprisecustomers. At the core of the invention is the precept that since thirdparty service providers have become largely responsible for theircustomer's operating performance, business intelligence must beintegrated confidentially and transparently at the enterprise andservice provider levels. Since the majority of this businessintelligence resides within enterprise firewalls or is scattered amongstservice partners and business happens in real time, a method ofsynchronously accessing and universally rendering prevailing businessconditions is necessary to enable the basis for achieving previouslyunattainable gains in business productivity. Finally, the creation ofthis transparent, synchronized and universal business activity mosaic,viewable without data parallax by each participant, has the effect ofcreating new operating and services paradigms.

The DBAM engine and network user configuration provides the foundationfor several operating and services innovations through the continuousmanagement of attribute characteristics in the configuration, ownership,time and value domains. The fact that information can be logged in timeenables a discrete, virtual snapshot of a company's business activitiesand creates the digital basis for higher level intelligence judgmentswhich can be determined and executed in a semi or fully autonomic mode.The existence of the Grid, or a functional equivalent, along withaccompanying administrative controls to link and manage specificapplications, enables these manipulations to be ordered and conductedfaster and more effectively than with its human or spreadsheetpredecessor.

The four business applications residing above the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, include, but are not limited to: Buy onDemand, Zero Cash Cycle, Portfolio Business Activity Management, and Bidto Market.

Each is intended to be “sold” to the subscribing customer on a monthlyfee basis or on a volume of asset activity basis, or bundled within theservice offering of a service provider of outsourced services. The DBAMengine may be linked to a subscriber's IT infrastructure for the purposeof gathering, confidentially creating the business mosaic, enabling semior fully autonomic functions and reporting service provider performance.The invention service may be linked to a provider's IT infrastructurefor the purpose of operating on the collective business mosaic data,selectively displaying the business mosaic, and reporting performance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a general block diagram of preferred embodiment of how a DBAMengine operates.

FIG. 2 is a general block diagram of an apparatus which may beincorporated within a DBAM engine or a functionally equivalent agent.

FIG. 3 is a general diagram of an apparatus which may be able to performthe functions of the DBAM engine.

FIG. 4 is a general block diagram of a method for the creation of a DBAMengine solution.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of a DBAM engine'sadministrative architecture.

FIG. 6 is a general block diagram for a method for buy on demand.

FIG. 7 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator of buyon demand.

FIG. 8 is a general block diagram for a method for zero cash cycle.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofzero cash cycle.

FIG. 10 is a general block diagram of a method for portfolio businessactivity management.

FIG. 11 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofportfolio business activity management.

FIG. 12 is a general block diagram of a method for bid to market.

FIG. 13 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofbid to market.

FIG. 14 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of the hardware andsoftware configuration for the DBAM engine.

FIG. 15 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of the DBAM engineapplication and software architecture.

FIG. 16 illustrates a Universal Business Activity Mosaic, where theMosaic is Defined in Time from Synchronously Time Indexed ReferenceMosaic Frames.

FIG. 17 is a preferred embodiment of the Discrete Business ActivityManagement (DBAM) architecture that uses a Grid Framework overconventional web services approach.

FIG. 18 illustrates a Discrete Business Activity Management Network in aGrid Framework for a Typical User Configuration

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following serves as a glossary of terms as used herein:

DBAM—Discrete Business Activity Management. “DBAM” may also representthe DBAM engine or may include DBAM applications if used in systemcontext.

An autonomic method utilizing controlled, secure compute resourceaccessibility, distributed computing applications, resource compute andstorage assets for the comprehensive profiling of near or real timerepresentations of time sequenced, synchronized, characterized businessactivity, at any elemental level,

-   -   by any supplying or consuming entity within a group of        commercially related subscribing business partners,    -   for the purpose of creating a near or real time universal        business activity mosaic.    -   The mosaic,    -   defined in time by synchronously indexed reference mosaic frames        (see FIG. 16),    -   provides quantified assessments of differentiated attribute        states that are universally viewable from any entity reference        point by virtue of a Grid framework which controls the        synchronous extraction, conditioning, translating, filtering of        proprietary content and routing of attributes between business        partners.    -   Proprietary content is safely distilled within privacy domains        designated and at levels specified by subscribers to produce        exportable data which may be assembled between business partners        and processed to embed mission critical business intelligence        within the mosaic.    -   Interpretation of the intelligence within the mosaic results in        significant time-compression of market knowledge discovery by        (attribute element) and by subscribing entity on the basis of        near or real time event representation occurring at the end        customer consumption point, or at any point in between.        BOD—Buy on demand.        BTM—Bid to market.        0CC—Zero Cash Cycle.        PBAM—Portfolio business activity management.        Entity—Any commercial business engaged in the procurement or        sale of tangible property or services. An entity can encompass a        single node or a plurality of nodes. As used herein, “entity”        may represent a single node or a plurality of nodes. Also used        as “entities.”        Subscriber—An entity electing to utilize DBAM. A “source” is        also subscriber but when used with the word “subscriber” in        explanatory text, the source is a supplier to the subscriber.        Asset—Physical asset or tangible service sold for revenue by a        seller to a buyer.        Business Attribute—Describes any tangible asset or service        purchased or re-sold by a commercial business, related expenses        incurred as the result of such activities, or any other object        of managed business activity that may be parametrically        represented.        Business Attribute Parameters—Quantitative measures which are        used to describe business attributes which may be time dependent        or time independent defined as, but not limited to:        Time Dependent Extracted and Translated Business Asset Attribute        Parameters: Customer asset ownership relationship; Asset Sale to        Customer Relationship; Quantity Assets Transacted (received,        shipped, eliminated, returned) between partners and locations;        Quantity Assets Held (by inventory location at subscriber        level); Location Assets Held; Quantity Assets Expected (to be        received) by partner supplier; Quantity Asset Sales        Booked/Backlogged/Returned (by customer).        Time Independent Extracted Translated Business Asset Attribute        Parameters (logged in time):        Part Number—a unique identifier or description method for an        Asset or Service; Physical Specification; Asset Type Class;        Current Vendor(s) by Part Number and splits; Approved vendor        list by part number and source vendor part number; Approved        vendor list by service; Processing Lead Time (physical or        transport); Subscriber specified service level requirements;        Relationship to top level part number or other assets within a        Bill of Material; Autonomic Procurement Status (does not require        value add steps for management e.g. C part); Autonomic Sale        Status (bid authorization on exchange); Service Level election;        Margin Level election; Value Deterioration Level election; Cost        Recovery Thresholds; Development ROI Thresholds; Prevailing        Market Source Selections for Competitive Cost; Reverse or Normal        Exchange Elections by part number.        Time Independent Extracted Translated Business Expense Attribute        Parameters (logged in time):        Accounts Payable balances (by subscriber); Accounts Receivable        balances (by subscriber); Invoice Retirement Dates and        Comparative Amounts (by subscriber); Asset Valuation (cost);        Asset Sale Price; Expense and type per chart of accounts; DBAM        Application Services Providers Billing Summaries; DBAM        Application Services Providers Performance Summaries; DBAM        System Billing Services Summaries; DBAM System Performance        Summaries; Attribute complaint or defect. Service Provider        Service Attribute Parameters—Quantitative measures which are        used to describe business attribute parameter performance levels        which are managed on behalf of a business entity by third party        service providers. Defined as, but not limited to: Asset        Delivery Service Level Election; Credit Availability Threshold        Election; Risk Level or Other Loan Product Related Covenants;        Threshold Business Levels for On line Auction Engagement; Flat        Commission Rates for On line Auctions; DBAM Host Application        Services Summaries; DBAM Application Services Providers        Performance Summaries; DBAM Billing Services Summaries; DBAM        Performance Summaries.        Data Element Integrity—Comprises data accuracy which includes,        but is not limited to, the reconciliation of data syntax errors,        data semantic errors, data schema errors, and data content or        manipulation errors, or extraction errors.        Attribute Maintenance Functions—Program subroutines which are        responsible for polling compute or storage resources for changes        in time independent business attribute parameters.        Characterized Business Attribute State—A business attribute        state defined by a predetermined set of related parameters for        that attribute, related to a specific entity, extracted in time.        Synchronized Characterized Attribute States—Attributes between        partner entities that have the same or approximately the same        parametric representations in time for a given attribute.        Time Index—A single point in time used to synchronize        characterized attribute states. Time indices used to synchronize        a mosaic frame between entities are generally identical.        Optionally, the time indices may exhibit error or some time        differential between them provided the synchronous integrity        between attribute parameters is not materially violated.        Translate—The conversion of an attribute's parametric        representations or characterizations from one domain's context        to a second domain's context, whereby the context of the        translated attribute(s) from the first domain equate or have        consistent meaning with those of the second domain. Optionally        translate may also provide for data element integrity.        Translated Attribute State—A characterized business attribute        state, such as for an asset related to a specific entity, that        includes additional parameters that have been translated, from        within each successive commercial customer domain, that        collectively describe the specific entity attribute across the        entire mosaic, at the same time index. Translations may be        accomplished through the use of ERP's, bills of materials, which        explicitly link a specific entity attribute between entities.        Data Parallax—The incongruence between the two or more entities'        translated attribute states for the same attribute if examined        from or at different time indexes.        Indexed Reference Mosaic Frame—A complete, single time indexed        representation of an entity's translated attribute states.        Entity Reference Mosaic—Means a complete representation of an        entity's indexed reference frames concatenated from the earliest        time index up to the latest or otherwise designated time index.        Also referred to as “mosaic” or “business mosaic.”        Universal Business Activity Mosaic—The combination of at least        two time indexed entity reference mosaics, or for as many as        there are partners with entity reference mosaics, to create a        single consolidated representation of asset states from the        earliest time index up to the latest or otherwise designated        time index, where all time indexes for each composing entity        reference mosaic have been synchronized.        Stochastic Modeling Techniques—Any reasonable or customary        mathematical methodology which may be used in the generation of        probabilistic or non-probabilistic representations of past,        current or future attribute parameter values.        Conditioned—Operated on using mathematical models which may        smooth, stochastically represent trends or characterize        variability, or otherwise quantitatively represent data        patterns.        Anticipated Attribute Consumption—Attribute consumption or        incidence based on the translated activity of a specific        attribute at the an intermediate or end customer level.        Autonomic—Any data or logical operation performed fully by        machine or in part by a machine and human (semi-autonomic). As        used herein, autonomic also includes semi or partial autonomic        operations. Also used herein as “autonomous” or “autonomously.”        Autonomic Computing—A term trademarked by IBM which largely        encompasses the concept of managing compute resources without        human intervention.        Outsource Services—Entity operations formerly conducted or        managed internal to the entity, displaced to or independently        provided by a third party contractor.        Autonomic Agent—A collection of software pre-configured with the        ability to make logical judgments given a series of inputs which        may represent a given set of conditions specified by a user        entity. Optionally, logical judgments may extend to        pre-programmed transactional or communication steps which may        precipitate subsequent logical or tangible consequence, such as        a transaction or communication without human intervention,        thereby acting as a substitute for human intelligence for        specified series of tasks or duties.        Registration—A process by which an entity identifies aspects        about itself, typically, but not necessarily by use of        applicable user interface.        Access Permissions—Logical permissions given to hosts or service        providing entities for the purpose of accessing infrastructure        resources under the condition of managed confidentiality.        Incorporated State—The new state of an asset or service        following its sale from one entity to a customer, though still        distinguishable, embedded with subsequent value add activity.        Internal or Third Party Resources—Primary or alternate compute,        storage or network resources owned or contracted by way of        independent third party, including the DBAM service provider for        use in DBAM or other application function.        Privacy Domain—A virtual location or physical set of resources        specified by subscriber which is permitted to contain        confidential information. The domain is only accessible to        parties designated by the subscriber and only attributed        parameters filtered according to DBAM registration may be        transported outside of the domain. A subscriber may specify        multiple embedded or non-embedded privacy domains. Domains may        be constructed using, but not limited to, SAML. The domain        maintains intrusion detection and logs all input/output content        and users to provide subscriber with proprietary function        assurance.        SAML—Security Assertion Markup Language.        Grid Technologies (Grid)—Compute and network resources which        support the sharing and coordinated use of diverse resources in        dynamic, virtual organizations, created from geographically        distributed components operated by distinct organizations with        differing policies, of virtual computing systems that are        sufficiently integrated to deliver the desired quality of        service.        Service Level Requirements—Any residual asset level expected to        be held and the probability of delivery within a designated time        frame following request notification for a given asset.        Autonomic Commercial Procurement Schemes—Commercial procurement        schemes which are executed by a intelligent system agent        residing within a compute system.        Related Intermediate or End Customers—Groupings of customers        characterized by sequential sell-buy relationships with respect        to an originating asset or service purchased from a source,        whereby each successive customers (intermediate customers) adds        some element of value to the original configuration of assets        (embeds asset or service) purchased until the assets are        consumed and utilized by the last buyer or buyers (end        customers).        Asset Transfer Behavior—The group of parameters which represent        the physical state of an asset or service such as physical        description, quantity, transaction description (backlog, backlog        request or confirm date, booking, billing, return), location,        composition, owner, etc in time to a prevailing business        activity level.        Asset Conversion Risk Profile—A numeric representation over time        quantifying the probability of an asset's liquidation at a        certain value.        Concatenated Entity Asset Conversion Risk Profile—The numeric        representation over time quantifying the probability of an        asset's liquidation at a certain value based on the sale of its        elements in total or in part of an end customer product, while        taking into account the asset supply between the asset's entity        owner and the end customer, and other risk determinants such as        buyer purchase risk.        Portfolio Business Activity—Any and all business strategies,        tactics, or operating practices necessary to bring products to        market, sustain a market presence over their lifetimes, and        provide installed base customer support.        Service Provider—A business partner that may provide an integral        operation or service to a subscriber. A service provider may        also subscribe independently to DBAM, PBAM, 0CC, BOD or BTM.        Original Design Manufacturing Service Providers—Companies who        offer design, manufacturing, fulfillment or other operational        business services to clients.        Value Engineering—The concept of re-engineering products for the        purpose of incorporating lower cost material or manufacturing        schemes to improve product margins        Portfolio Margin Performance—Product, gross or operating margin        performance of a designated product.        Element Cost Trends—Past, current and future committed cost        levels for a source element of an asset, service or other        attribute.        Competitive Cost Recovery—A translation of the value        deterioration from the intermediate or end market asset or        service into which a source entity's asset is incorporated to        the source entity's asset itself which would be proportionally        required to restore its relative competitiveness.        Source Asset Recovery Profiles—A numeric representation over        time quantifying the differential between the existing cost        level of the asset and the necessary cost of the asset to        recover discounts applied in the sale of the asset in its own or        combined configuration to the end customer.        Autonomic Asset Cost Recovery Prioritization and        Solicitation—The evaluation of source asset recovery profiles by        source, and by prevailing transaction volume to prioritize the        pursuit of specific asset recovery amounts from their sources        which have the greatest impact to margin performance.        Solicitation means the electronic request for asset recovery        action (cost reduction) from the asset source, accompanied by        the end market discounting justifications.        Competitive Cost Recovery—A translation of the value        deterioration from the intermediate or end market asset or        service into which a source entity's asset is incorporated to        the source entity's asset itself which would be proportionally        required to restore its relative competitiveness.        Reverse-Auction Exchanges—Exchanges which function by proposing        a buy price to find a seller.        Request for Quotation—The asset characterization parameter        information distributed by a buyer and necessary for a seller to        submit a binding offer for sale of that asset.        Approved Vendor List—A list of source vendors for a given asset        approved by the purchaser of that asset.        Extracting—The acquisition or gathering of data associated with        one or more attributes from a given systems domain in accordance        with registration preferences and mosaic generation.        Errors—The quantified differential in the attribute parameter        value or manipulated attribute parameter value with respect to        an expected or targeted value.        Real time—Data updates to attribute parameters or processed        attribute parameters at a regular frequency measurable in        incremental or integral seconds, minutes, days or weeks, or        alternatively means updates to time independent attribute        parameters occurring anytime after the parameters values or        characterization of the parameters change.        Combining—The process by which attribute parameters are        incrementally updated through extraction, intermediation,        conditioning through constraints with prior values from        historical mosaic generation (transport, conditions,        concatenation).        Intermediation—The process by which attribute parameters are        compared to their registered states in context and in taxonomy        for the purpose of assuring accurate and consistent meanings of        an attribute's parameter semantics and schemas within successive        business mosaics        Manipulating—The mathematical or contextual conversion of a        given business attribute and its characterizing parameters with        respect to time or other business attributes.        Application—An embodiment of software designed to function in        connection with the DBAM or DBAM equivalent and an autonomic or        semi-autonomic agent, to manage a specified set of business        attributes that collectively function to govern or enable the        governance of a designated business process. Applications may be        domain centric or distributed across multiple domains.        Domain—The complete realm of operation, including those        contracted to third parties, within which a commercial entity        conducts business that is under the administrative control of        that entity and for which a set of entity business attributes        are maintained. Multiple domains may exist within as single        entity.        Node—A single point within an entity from which extractions are        conducted. An entity or a domain may contain a single node or        multiple nodes.        Access—The conditional admittance to a node, governed by        registration preference for the purpose of extraction or receipt        of parametric or other data.        Transport—The physical movement of data between any registered        nodes within the business mosaic including those of a registered        third party control and administrative structure.        Business decisions—Actions declared to otherwise maintain or        change the course of business operations        Service—The embodiment of a DBAM, a DBAM equivalent and        applications, data content reconciliation, any form of        networking and technical support to a subscribing entity for a        fee, regardless of existing relationships with one or more        subscribing entities.        Constraints—Any series of quantitative formulae or logical rules        applied in the manipulation of attribute parameters for the        purpose of extracting meaning.        Computer—Any device use to manipulate or translate data.        Probe—Includes the monitoring for administrative, contextual,        taxonomic, and parametric data content accuracy errors to insure        discrete DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent, solution        operating reliability. Also used as “probing.”        Processing—Includes, but is not limited to, probing.        Operations—All critical processes employed by an entity for the        purpose of conducting commerce.        Virtual customer storefront—A logical vantage point created from        the assembly of data from multiple domains, from which any        entity may view by way of data manipulation, and physically        manage its operations in near real time or real time regardless        of their physical location.        FOB—Freight on board and is used in connection with terms of        sale to identify the point at which possession shifts from a        buyer to a seller.        FASB—Financial Accounting Standards Board, a professional        organization with the charter to establish and improve standards        of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and        education of the public, including issuers, auditors, and users        of financial information.        i2—A publicly traded US company specializing in the sale of        enterprise supply chain software.        Moody's—A publicly traded US company specializing in corporate        finance, banking, managed funds and risk management.        ODM—Original Design Manufacturing, a term used to describe a        third party provider of design and manufacturing services.        Routing—The transport of data, in accordance with preferences,        between domains and is necessary for the rendering of individual        and successive mosaic frames. Also used as “route.”        Preferences—The subscriber specified applications,        configurations, access privileges, privacy domains, mosaic        generation frequency, partner relationships and other        considerations necessary for solution operation.        Conditioning—The mathematical manipulation of attribute        parameters.        Synchronization—The process by which extractions from multiple        domains are coincidentally represented in time for related        business events using a Mosaic Time Index.        Translation Tables—The active, current, and historical        representations of attributes and their representative time        dependent and time independent parameters, along with their        assigned interrelationships between domains and between        entities, updated based on polling for changes in parametric        representations or the based on the generation of successive        business mosaics.        Taxonomy—Data schema or data format which a time dependent or        time independent parametric data are represented for the purpose        of storage, transport or computing interpretation.        Context—Data semantic or the specific meaning of parametric data        with respect to the attribute and entity to which it is        associated.        Enterprise—A commercial business entity, including any third        party service provider.        QoS—Quality of service. Refers to the priority of one        subscriber's user privileges over another, or the priority of        one operation over another in the operation of the solution.        Subscribe—The act of choosing to purchase a solution on a        commercial basis in which the choosing entity agrees to pay a        pro-rated fee and adhere to specific terms in connection with        the use of the solution. Also used as “subscribing”.        Administrator—The embodiment of tasks required to manage the        operation of the solution. Also used as “administrating.”        Solution—The collective DBAM, DBAM engine administrator, and        applications, as a non-service, or as a commercialized fee for        service to subscribing entities.        Format—The configuration of the service including any        combination of on-line software, networking, intermediation and        content reconciliation to an entity.        Filtering—The removal of either unwanted data content from an        original extraction or proprietary content restricted by        subscriber registration for distribution beyond the point of        extraction or beyond the registered privacy domain.        Reference—The point of view of any single subscriber.

FIG. 1 is a general block diagram of preferred embodiment of howautonomic discrete business activity management engine (DBAM) operatesfor controlled and/or secure compute resource accessibility and/ordistributed computing applications and/or resource compute and/orstorage assets for the comprehensive profiling of near or real timerepresentations of time sequenced and/or synchronized and/orcharacterized business activity, at any elemental level, by anysupplying and/or consuming entity within a group of commercially relatedbusiness partners, for the purpose of creating a near and/or real timeuniversal business mosaic. The business mosaic, defined in time byentity reference mosaics provides quantified assessments of timedifferentiated business attribute parameters that are viewable acrossthe universal business activity mosaic from any specific entityreference point without data parallax.

Distilled views of specific business attributes within mosaics such asproduction assets, services or product margins may be generated for usewith higher level coupled applications.

The Grid Framework is illustrated in FIG. 17. FIG. 17 is a preferredembodiment of the Discrete Business Activity Management (DBAM) that usesa Grid Framework over conventional web services approach. Per FIG. 17,the DBAM Grid Approach utilizes a Grid Framework that supports GridApplications, Grid Host Databases, Grid Computing, Routing and GridSecurity, all in connection with mobile and desktop compute devices,user applications and user access control; enterprise hardware,applications, databases and firewalls; internet, extranet and intranethardware data transmission. Collectively, these elements are notsupported in a Web Services Approach.

A Grid framework, or equivalent methodology deployed acrossparticipating commercial entities' IT infrastructure controls thesynchronous extraction, conditioning, translating, filtering ofproprietary content, and routing of business attribute parameters. Thedata that composes the entity reference mosaic is composed on the basisthat proprietary data is not unknowingly shared between related businessentities or their service providers and therefore is a function ofpre-agreed scope of content exchange between entities, administered bythe DBAM administrator and reflected by way of subscribing entitypreference in the set up of the DBAM engine. The data may physicallyreside either inside or outside each entity's firewall in designatedprivacy domains operated by the DBAM engine administrator, depending onentity preference or the security attributes of the IT infrastructureframework, and if managed within these privacy domains, encrypted andmonitored for intrusion.

FIG. 18 illustrates a Discrete Business Activity Management Network in aGrid Framework for a Typical User Configuration. The DBAM Grid serviceand network user configuration (see FIG. 18) provides the foundation forseveral operating and services innovations through the continuousmanagement of attribute characteristics in the configuration, ownership,time and value domains. The fact that information can be logged in timeenables a discrete, virtual snapshot of a company's business activitiesand creates the digital basis for higher level intelligence judgmentswhich can be determined and executed in a semi or fully autonomic mode.The existence of the Grid enables these manipulations to be ordered andconducted faster and more effectively than with its human or spreadsheetpredecessor.

Interpretation of the universal business mosaic through coupledapplications with unique user interfaces to which each entityconstituting a “subscriber”, provides a novel method to time compressand communicate the formulation of business intelligence based on nearor real time universal business activity discovery. Interpretation of abusiness mosaic through the same means provides a novel method ofproviding universal parallax free business activity perspective byvirtue of the mosaic's comprehensive and synchronous entityconstruction. Both interpretative methods provide the foundation forsuch applications to manage basic business functions which can beexecuted on a semi or fully autonomic basis.

Instant advantages of the DBAM engine include, but are not limited to:(i) Unlike commercial supply chain “optimization solutions” which areapplicable in the entity domain and with business partners from theperspective of the entity, the invention coincidentally and concurrentlyoverlays all entity optimization solutions as if all entities weresynchronously identified in one single asset mosaic domain regardless ofthe entity perspective; (ii) The business mosaic exposes significantoperating efficiencies that exist between entities by eliminating orvirtually eliminating data parallax; (iii) The ability to maintain themosaic in the time domain provides a foundation for new group ofbusiness productivity and management applications to harvest exposedoperating inefficiencies, or support new service paradigms to do same.

The following description of the steps is not in the order that theymust occur.

Initially, the DBAM engine may require a logical registration and/orinitialization 1. Registration and/or initialization 1 may request,either by human or computer, any combination, but is not limited by:entity and/or services registration; business partner registration;resource and/or access permissions registration; attribute registration.

Entity and/or services registration includes, but is not limited to, theprocess by which a subscribing entity physically and/or logicallyidentifies itself with the DBAM engine. This process can be supportedthrough user interfaces and/or extraction scripts. This processcomprises entity identification, addressing, and/or election of serviceswhich are used to invoke deployment of the DBAM Engine or resulting DBAMapplications.

Business partner registration includes, but is not limited to,registration of all or some business partners. This may be used tofacilitate attribute data routing. This process may produce a partial orcomplete operational business partners map which may be used to enablesubscriber reference business mosaics and/or announce subscriberbusiness partners to each other.

Resource and/or access permissions registration includes, but is notlimited to registration within a subscribing enterprise's own and/or viathird party compute resource, storage or network service providers, orother network and/or information processing resources which may supportattribute parameter routing, the assignment of access permissions,location of thin clients, and the administration of the DBAM engine.Access permissions registration, which may be determined by thesubscribing entity, includes, but is not limited to the registration ofaccess permissions for the DBAM engine, applications and/or serviceproviders with respect to the registered resources, and the registrationof privacy domains, or virtual zones beyond which proprietary attributeparameter information may not be transported prior to proprietaryfiltering.

Attribute registration may also include, but is not limited to attributemaintenance, and attribute mapping. Attribute registration comprises theselection of attributes to be included within the business mosaic, usingthe subscriber's own identifying taxonomy. Additionally, attributeregistration may include confirmation of business attribute parametersand/or resource location, which may contain parametric data.Additionally, attribute registration may include translation tablesrequired to convert attribute taxonomies between partners for use inrouting asset parameters during the construction of mosaics or for thefunction of higher level interpretive applications. Additionally,attribute registration may include privacy domains beyond whichattributes may not be distributed. Additionally, attribute registrationmay include attributes which may be encrypted and transported beyond aprivacy domain in such a format which may preclude a third partyobserver of such data to fully reconstruct the respective attribute'scharacterized state.

The DBAM engine utilizes data extracted from different entities andprojects them to a certain time index to achieve synchronization 5.Synchronization 5 allows for a subscribing entity's attribute parametricdata extraction to be adjusted for time changing events for eachoccurring between the time index and the actual extraction time. Uponcompletion, the process may establish a time synchronous assetrepresentation of the all or some business partners with data parallaxeffects eliminated. This synchronized data can be used to support higherlevel DBAM engine autonomic applications. Synchronization 5 may beconducted behind or outside the subscribing entity's firewall.

The time index 2 may be determined by a counter which identifies thespecific point in time that each business mosaic frame and attendantsubscriber attributes are referenced for extraction and synchronization.The DBAM engine may generate a time index and/or time index sequences,which may be governed by the DBAM engine itself. The time index isidentical, or nearly identical for all business partners registeredwithin the business mosaic and is ideally, although not necessarilysequenced at a constant interval with respect to prior frames. Further,the time index may be assigned to all extraction operations for datasynchronization purposes. Data extractions may be normalized to the timeindex prior to further manipulation.

Synchronization 5 may also be used for, but is not limited to, combiningthe data into a business mosaic. For example, one may create a businessmosaic by any combination, but not limited to, the following steps:initial data concatenation, data integration, data conditioning, andsynchronization 5.

Initial data concatenation may comprise utilizing parametric dataelements for a given attribute to initially concatenate a part numberper subscribing entity versus all other parameters bases with priorextractions in time for a given attribute of a subscriber. Usingoptimal, conventional best-fit mathematical algorithms, an updatedprofile for each parameter is produced to characterize, quantify andpreserve discrete customer behavior. This operation may be conductedbehind or outside the subscriber firewall. This data operation mayconstitute and intermediate step if there are multiple system datasources within a single enterprise, and may necessitate a finalconsolidation operation (within a single entity) to enable acomprehensive overall part number/customer representation.

Data integration may comprise utilizing attribute profiles forintegrating over all discrete customers within a single part numberdomain for a subscriber based on the extraction time index. Usingconventional best-fit mathematical algorithms, an updated profile foreach integrated parameter is produced to end customer behavior throughthe “single” part number. This operation may be conducted behind oroutside the subscriber firewall.

Data conditioning may comprise conditioning each parameter profile usinga advanced mathematical modeling techniques to provide stochasticrepresentations of future business activity. Each forward projectionrange is bound in the context of graduated probabilities from zero toone hundred percent, and preserves collective market behavior.

Synchronization 5 of subscribing entities' attributes with the timeindex may occur in parallel or sequentially for all related businesspartners. Optionally, other concatenation, integration or conditioningpermutations may be employed to complete synchronization, provided thepermutations fully preserve the quantification of customer behavior foreach attribute parameter.

Synchronization 5 may also allow, but is not limited to, allowing thesubscribing entity to determine preferences, through a functionallyequivalent registration and/or initialization step 1.

Synchronization 5 may allow, but is not limited to, determining when toextract the data from the subscribing entities 3. For example, the datamay be attribute parameters, either time dependent or logged, fromsubscribing entity's resources that fully represents the attribute stateof the subscribing entity. The DBAM Engine may process the complete setof descriptive attribute parameters which characterize the asset inrelation to time and each other subscribing entity. Data extractions maybe conducted at time intervals based on infrastructure resourceavailability and include changes in time independent asset attributessuch as value and/or configuration which may be used to create parameterevent logs (logs). Logs are written to and/or updated from thesubscribing entity's internal compute resources at different times aschanges occur in time independent asset attributes. These logs may bepolled as part of each extraction operation. Extractions may be indexedaccording to the subscribing entities. This may permit data to beoverlaid and used to create reference asset business mosaics for eachpartner within a business group. If extractions are unsuccessful, datamay be substituted based on an approximation using prior and correctedwith the next successful extraction. Each asset extraction may be, butis not necessarily, logged with the DBAM engine and may be stored eitherbehind or outside the subscriber firewall.

Additionally, the DBAM engine preferably will check to see that allsubscribing entities have been synchronized 4.

After synchronization 5, the DBAM engine may translate data into eachentity's format. Additionally, the DBAM engine may combine eachtranslated data. Translation 6 may utilize a process by which attributecharacterizations are quantitatively and/or synchronously relatedbetween subscribing entities. This may be prepared for confidentialexport.

For example, one may conduct translation 6 by, but not limited to, thefollowing steps: source translation, data integration, dataconditioning, and proprietary filtering.

The following preferred embodiment of source translation may be utilizedfor, but not limited to, preparing the attribute parameter profiles fordistribution to business partners. Each attribute parameter profile maybe cast within the context of the source part number. This may beaccomplished by either exploding the original subscribing entity's partnumber into its sourced components, or, if no value add operations areconducted to the attribute, may be cast by cross referencing thesubscribing entity's part number to the source part number. In theformer case, the original part number may be exploded into its sourcedelemental components based on current-effective bills of materialsobtained within the attribute extraction. Following explosion, thesource component part numbers assume the same synchronized time index,are overlaid with the same market characterized parameter profiles fromtheir “reports to” part number or subscriber part number whichrepresents the assembly to into which the source element part isembedded, but assigned component descriptions and values. This operationmay be conducted behind or outside the subscriber firewall.

The following preferred embodiment of data integration may be utilizedfor, but not limited to, integrating the attribute profiles for commonsourced elemental attributes parameters within a single profile for eachparameter. Using conventional best fit mathematical algorithms, anupdated profile for each integrated parameter is produced to preserveend market behavior represented within all “reports to” part numbers.This operation may be conducted behind or outside the subscriberfirewall.

The following preferred embodiment of data conditioning may be utilizedfor, but not limited to, conditioning the parameter profiles using aadvanced mathematical modeling techniques to provide stochasticrepresentations of future expected parameter values. Each forwardprojection range is bound in the context of graduated probabilities,and/or preserves recent and/or collective subscriber parameter behavior.This operation may be conducted behind or outside the subscriberfirewall.

The following preferred embodiment of propriety filtering may beutilized for, but is not limited to, preparing each source attributeparameter profile for exportation and/or routing from proprietarydomains to source partners. Each profile may be filtered to removeconfidential information as specified within the subscriber attributeregistration or a process functionally equivalent to 1. This informationincludes but is not limited to related sales pricing and/or endcustomer. This operation may be conducted behind or outside thesubscriber firewall.

Secure translation 6 of subscribing entities' data and/or attributes tosource attributes with the time index may occur in parallel orsequentially for all related business partners. Optionally, otherintegration or conditioning permutations may be employed to completedata preparation for filtering, provided the permutations fully preservethe quantification of “reports to” part number behavior for eachattribute parameter.

Additionally, the DBAM engine may check to see whether all translateddata is combined 7, 8. This might occur by going from translating datafrom one subscribing entity and combining that data to anothersubscribing entity's translated data.

Additionally, the DBAM engine may route the business mosaic 9. Routingmay be broadly construed to include, but is not limited to, the processby which translated subscribing entity's attribute states are routed toa mapped business partner source and concatenated with source attributeextractions within same time index frame. For example, a preferredembodiment, but not the only embodiment, may include, but is not limitedto, the steps of: data integration, data conditioning, and concatenationof attribute parameter.

For example, the following preferred embodiment of data integration mayinclude, but is not limited to, integrating common source attributeparameter profiles received from different customer subscribers into asingle parameter domain. Further, utilization of conventional best-fitmathematical algorithms may be used to produce updates on profiles foreach integrated attribute parameter. This operation may be conductedbehind or outside the subscriber firewall.

For example, the following preferred embodiment of data conditioning mayinclude, but is not limited to, conditioning the parameter profilesusing a advanced mathematical modeling techniques to provide stochasticrepresentations of future business activity. Each forward projectionrange is bound in the context of graduated probabilities, and/orpreserves recent and/or collective subscriber parameter behavior. Thisoperation may be conducted behind or outside the subscriber firewall.

For example, the concatenation of attribute parameter may include, butis not limited to, the process of utilizing conditioned attributeparameter profiles originating from subscribers, or originating fromdownstream intermediate or end source-subscribers concatenated withsource attribute parameter extractions from the same time index and likeparameters assigned distinct values depending upon the origination ofthe translated parametric behavior. This operation may be conductedbehind or outside the subscriber firewall

Additionally, the routing 9 may occur sequentially for all relatedbusiness partners beginning with end market partners, ending with thelast source and indexing tier by tier as all subscriber-source mappedtransfers and routings are complete within each tier. Optionally, otherintegration or conditioning permutations may be employed to completedata preparation for filtering, provided the permutations fully preservethe quantitative representation of subscriber translated behavior foreach attribute parameter.

Additionally, the routing 9 of the business mosaic may reach completion,but is not limited to, upon reaching the final source and/or completingall synchronizing, integration, conditioning, translating, routingand/or concatenating tasks for a given time index for each entityreference business mosaic. Upon reaching completion, the DBAM engine mayor may not place an entity reference mosaic to the business mosaic.

Additionally, the DBAM engine may inquire whether the subscribing entityhas requested continued service 10. The subscribing entity may requestcontinuation of the DBAM engine service without any actual confirmation.If the subscribing entity requests for a change 11 in registrationand/or initialization 1 or functionally equivalent, then it is sent backto 1. If the subscribing entity does request continuation of service 12,then the entity is sent back to 2 for further iteration or iterations ofthe DBAM engine.

FIG. 2 is a general block diagram of an apparatus or data structurewhich may be incorporated within a DBAM engine or a functionallyequivalent agent. The data structure comprises two data values 13, 14and a time index value 15.

The two data values 13, 14 may comprise data extracted from twodifferent entities. Alternatively, the two data values 13, 14 maycomprise data that may have been generated utilizing synchronize 5 fromFIG. 1 or a functionally equivalent process and/or the time index value15. Alternatively, the two data values 13, 14 may comprise data that hasbeen generated utilizing translation 6 from FIG. 1 or a functionallyequivalent process.

FIG. 3 is a general diagram of an apparatus which may be able to performthe functions of the DBAM engine. The apparatus comprises a memoryelement 20 and a processor 21.

The memory element 20 may comprise data from one or more entities. Thedata may have a time element that may be read from the processor 21. Theprocessor 21 generates projections of the data and/or a processfunctionally equivalent to synchronize 5 of FIG. 1. The processor 21 mayhave the capability of processing the data for errors. As used herein,term “examining” pertains to the ability to view and/or review saiddata. The processor 21 may have the ability to translate the data into aformat of one entity and/or a process of translation 6 of FIG. 1. Theprocessor may also have the ability to transfer the data outside theapparatus by, but not limited to, a wired network or a wireless network.

FIG. 4 is a general block diagram of a method for the creation of a DBAMengine solution. The diagram displays how one or more entities 30, 31may utilize a DBAM engine solution. The solution comprises the steps of,but is not limited to: registration 32 to an application 36 or a processfunctionally equivalent to registration and/or initialization 1 of FIG.1; extraction 33 of data from an entity or a process functionallyequivalent 3 of FIG. 1; manipulating 34 the data or a processfunctionally equivalent to synchronization 5 of FIG. 1; and removal ofdata parallax 35 from the data or a process functionally equivalent totranslation 6 of FIG. 1.

In addition, the solution may comprise an administrator 37, which can behuman or computer, that will probe each step for the creation of asolution. Optionally, the administrator may contain an autonomic agent38 which allows the steps to be conducted autonomously, orsemi-autonomously.

Optionally, the solution created may be utilized by an application 36.The application may also be subject to probing by the administrator 37.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of a DBAM engineadministrative architecture. All the elements are optional, can beapplied in any combination, and are not limited by the ones mentioned.

The application source code and revision management 51 is designated fora module responsible to manage DBAM software, code revisions and/orinsure subscriber code interface compatibility. The module functionsinclude, but are not limited to, distribution and maintenance of DBAMsoftware to registered resources. Examples include code updates,protocol revisions or patches. Software compatibilities may be managedby monitoring subscriber application revisions called by DBAM functions.Optionally, diagnostic or other test routines may be created to insureongoing functional compatibilities, or acceptable performance levelsbetween interfacing software elements.

The asset attribute and registration index 52 is designated for a modulewhich may maintain a storage log of all DBAM computational results foreach processing step, by subscriber and attribute, in addition to allDBAM subscriber registrations. This index may be used to supportreporting inquiries of a subscriber or to support the interruptionrecovery management function for DBAM attributes, or may be referencedby DBAM application administration modules as well for interruptionrecovery management or for other attribute data requests.

The attribute parameter log 53 is designated for a module which maymaintain the log and is contacted at the time by subscriber resourcescontaining registered attributes whose parameters arbitrarily changethrough random events, such as a part number revision or other attributeparameters including but not limited to physical specification, contextor taxonomy. This log is polled in real time to insure that prior to theinitiation of business mosaic frame generation, all attribute parametersrequiring log maintenance are current with respect to the Grid TimeIndex and can be merged with time dependent parameters of the sameattribute, such as inventory level, to preserve attribute representationintegrity.

The grid time index 54 is designated for a module which may establishthe time index for each business mosaic frame, and/or its associatedattribute parameter sets. The module specifies the universal time forwhich all subscriber attribute parameters are to be extracted for allrelevant subscribers within a business partner Grid, and by which allDBAM applications may expand reference business mosaic interpretationsand support autonomic business functions. The reservations and QoSmanagement module uses the time index to obtain reservations from withindesignated subscriber resources for extraction on or shortly after thegrid time index. Subscribers not extracting attribute parameters at thegrid time index may be required to normalize asset parameter data. Eachasset business mosaic successively created in time has its ownidentifying grid time index, which is advanced in time at presetintervals which may or may not be uniform.

The reservations and QoS management 55 is designated for a module whichmay provide DBAM engine supervisory management over all module functionsand DBAM applications to insure that all relevant subscriber attributeparameter data is maintained, data processing operations are supervisedand/or completed, each asset business mosaic cycle is successfullycreated in time, and properly sequenced with successive businessmosaics. Management tasks include Grid resource reservation andcoordination based on program requirements, accounting for dataexchange, completion of jobs, data requisites, concurrent DBAMapplications, Grid supervisory functions or services (either current orfuture specified), and prioritization of other administrative modulefunctions within DBAM applications. Module functionality also includesthe performance monitoring of traffic or resource optimization withinDBAM and in relation to performance monitoring of DBAM applicationswhich may be enabled by customized or third party programs currently orexpected to be marketed for such use.

The interruption recovery management 56 is designated for a module whichmay scan the QoS Management function to discover unsuccessful dataprocessing operations, resets or reinitiates processing sequences ifpossible, including routing operations to alternate resources or alertsQoS Manager to irresolvable problems for administrative intervention.Based on the grid time index of the business mosaic, and using the assetattribute index, failed data operations may be later recovered byre-running data sequences with repaired resources and archived data, orusing missed extraction, or subscriber conditioning methods.

The missed extraction conditioning 57 is designated for a module whichmay provide data conditioning services in the event that theinterruption recovery management 56 is unsuccessful in correcting a dataprocessing error within an acceptable time interval. If invoked, themodule provides arbitrary extraction data, based on a best fit curvemodeling projections from prior extractions for appropriate parameters.These arbitrary extractions may later be replaced and the businessmosaic updated, if parameter data can be recovered from resources at alater time.

The missed subscriber conditioning 58 is designated for a module whichmay provide data conditioning services in the event that a businesspartner Grid is incomplete. In this case, the entity registrationreflects such a condition and requires the subscriber to specify which“surrogate” business partners may be used to in proportion, toapproximate the behavior of the missing partner subscribers. Wheninvoked, the module provides arbitrary extraction data, based on a bestfit curve projections from designated subscriber extractions. Arbitraryextraction data may later be possibly replaced and the business mosaicupdated, with the subscribing of the missing partners.

The security and intrusion detection 59 is designated for a module whichmay incorporate commercially available security and intrusion detectionfunctions and practice into the business partner Grid subscriberinfrastructure supporting the DBAM engine, and DBAM engine applications,and/or hosted by DBAM. The module manages distributed virtual subscriberprivacy domains by monitoring and at a subscriber's option, verifyingthe flow of all information filtered of proprietary content and theprevention of unfiltered data flows throughout the Grid, originatingfrom the subscriber to provide assurance to the subscriber of accesspermissions and secure data routing compliance. The module also manageslocal virtual subscriber privacy domains, by monitoring the containmentof encrypted and sensitive attribute data generated in connection withDBAM or DBAM applications, within a subscriber's firewall or elsewherewithin designated firewall to provide assurance to the subscriber ofaccess permissions and data confidentiality. The module also managesrandom subscriber access and content requests through a controlledprocess of subscriber authorization and traffic content monitoring.

The DBAM Engine administration 60 is designated for a module which mayprovide DBAM engine performance metrics used to manage engine functions.This module may incorporate commercially available resource loadbalancing tools or other traffic management schemes, be used to lowersynchronization overhead or make more efficient use of subscriber orthird party infrastructure resources. Key module functionality includes,but is not limited to, QoS priority over all DBAM elements within thehosted Grid including diagnostic and prioritized management of DBAMsubscriber initialization, DBAM business mosaic generation andcoordination of DBAM application registration expansions, extractions,interpretations and autonomic functions. The module maintains amaster-slave relationship over all DBAM application administrationmodules, or external application DBAM call functions.

The DBAM application interface control 610 is designated for a modulewhich may provide the interface control to all DBAM applications. Modulefunctionality includes subscriber solicitation for DBAM applications,invocation of the selected application's registration procedure andupdate of DBAM registrations. Additionally, the module activates theDBAM application and provides reference business mosaic extractions atregistered intervals to support application function. The module alsoregulates and supports data exchange activity between multiple DBAMapplications to maintain reference business mosaic time indexcongruence, and between DBAM and application interruption recoverymodules. With respect to external applications, the module retrieves orsupplies externally requested information on the basis of subscriberregistration preference, but does not permit invasion of the DBAM engineor prioritization of its registered resources by an external body.

The services and subscriber billing 620 is designated for a module whichmay manage subscriber rates, services eligibility and/or maintainsrecords of usage for subscriber billing of DBAM services. Additionally,the module manages the actual billing and invoicing for services tosubscribers, incorporating all DBAM engine applications based onmaster-slave relationships with each application module's administrativearchitecture.

All the modules are not limited or defined by the capabilities listed.

FIG. 6 is a general block diagram for a method for buy on demand (BOD).Buy on demand allows a business to utilize a universal business activitymosaic created by a DBAM engine, or a functional equivalent agent, torender a virtual customer storefront, whereby a business may discretelywitness in time and character the sale of its own assets and serviceseither fully or partially comprising those sold to any body of relatedintermediate or end customers. Purposes include, but are not limited by,the following: purchasing, selling, financing, warehousing or physicallytransporting assets on demand. Any combination of the stated purposesmay also be applied.

Instant advantages of the BOD include, but are not limited to: (i)Unlike commercial supply chain “optimization solutions” which areapplicable in the entity domain and with business partners from theperspective of the entity, the invention coincidentally and concurrentlyoverlays all entity optimization solutions as if all entities wereone—one single asset mosaic—regardless of the entity perspective, forthe purpose of reaching unequivocal, mutual procurement decisions acrosscombinations of entities; (ii) May be employed as a method by assetdelivery service providers for immediate, or near immediate sale tocustomer, following mutual recognition of sales order by serviceprovider/customer, to customer's customer, resulting in a nearcoincident customer accounts payable and accounts receivable cycle, orshort cash cycle; (iii) Method may enable the deployment of accompanyingsemi or fully autonomic commercial procurement schemes.

Initially, the buy on demand may require a registration and/orinitialization 41 which may request, either by human or computer, anycombination, but is not limited by, the following: BOD serviceregistration; BOD resource registration and access permissions;attribute registration; BOD core application performance preferences;and BOD autonomic function preferences.

The BOD service registration includes, but is not limited to, theprocess by which the subscriber and source(s) entities alter theirrequisite DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent, registrationto include election of BOD services. Service elections may includeoptions such as: selection of autonomic function, choice of applicationservice levels, service rates, period of subscription, scope ofdeployment within entity, or other related fee/non-fee service optionsbased on subscriber preference.

The BOD resource registration and access permissions includes, but isnot limited to, the process by which an entity expands DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, registration to include internal entityor a third party compute resource, storage, network resources, and/oraccess permissions for operation, and/or administration of BOD. Accessto resources and permission to access data, run programs and distributeprocessed data is securely restricted within the DBAM engine, orfunctionally equivalent agent, unless otherwise specified by entity. Inaccordance with resource registration, the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, may require deployment of thin clientsoftware on entity resources in connection with the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, host, or alternatively be completelyhosted by the DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent. Also inaccordance with resource registration, BOD user interfaces areconfigured for and accessible by entity, or users designated by entitiessuch as contracted service providers.

The attribute registration includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity expands the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalentagent, registration to select a list of business attributes forinclusion by autonomic application within BOD, based upon the DBAMengine, or a functionally equivalent agent, attributes alreadyregistered and mapped between entities.

The BOD core application performance preferences include, but are notlimited to, the process by which an entity expands the BOD registrationfor attribute interpretation. Attribute interpretation requires thespecification and/or selection of an identical method of stochasticmodeling for use in the generation of service level profiles.Additionally, subscriber or source attribute inputs may be necessary tosupport the function of selected stochastic models such as, but notlimited to, delivery lead times, service level performance, buffer stockheld, minimum fulfillment quantity, and freight mode options. Treatmentof parameter error differentials between subscriber, intermediate andend customers requires subscriber preference to base actual servicelevel profile on the greatest error, error associated with the endcustomer, an average of all errors, or other subscriber specifiedscheme. Alternate service level profile groupings require specificationof attribute groups, by type, by region, by subscriber customer, orother subscriber specified criteria. Additionally, GUI, filetransfer/distribution preferences and permissions may be required tosupport registration input and proprietary display of interpretativeresults.

The BOD autonomic function preferences includes, but is not limited to,the process by which an entity expands the BOD registration to includesubscriber defined threshold values, groupings, relative functions,logical arguments, or processing frequencies for analysis of attributeparameters, in addition to linkage with other DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, applications. These values may be usedin part, to form an intelligent rule base along with other subscriberdefined performance criteria necessary for each autonomic function toprovide its subscriber with logical business recommendations or serve asthe basis for logical action. Parameter threshold values associated witheach attribute include, but are not limited to delivery service levelagreement, purchase increment, imminent time period for the generationof purchases based on bookings, purchase interval or lead time intervalfor attribute processing or transport, or forecast horizon intervals.Attribute groupings include, but may not be limited by royalty onlyassets versus sell-buy assets, attributes with FOB origin or destinationclassification, minimum relative asset purchase quantities orconfigurations to comply with integral configuration product or servicespecification, import export attribute parameter data groupings fordocument assembly, attribute preferred service provider assignments suchas for logistics or warehousing, asset class, regional designation orparameter type. Relative functions include but are not limited to thirdparty optimization software packages for evaluation of capacity anddetermination of optimized asset or service availability (such as i2),source service level rate schedules for delineated delivery performance,or incremental resource utilization relationships based on transferbehavior. Logical arguments used for the support of autonomic functionsmay include, but are not limited to procurement authorization schemes,or delivery versus freight mode preferences. Processing frequencies forspecified autonomic function execution may include, but are not limitedto correction cycle frequencies for use in establishing the period oftime between source responses are mandated in reaction to subsequentattribute transfer parameter changes within reference business mosaics,procurement frequencies for use in establishing the time period betweensuccessive considerations of new purchases by a subscriber. Otherautonomic applications may be specified by the subscriber within theDBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, registration foroperation in parallel to BOD or other attribute business mosaicsconstructed between business partners. At subscriber option, additionaluser defined functions such as expanded user interface, file transfer orcompute steps between autonomic applications may embody the completepreference specification. GUI, file transfer/distribution preferencesand permissions may be required to support the proprietary display ofall autonomic function preferences in use by the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, and BOD.

The BOD extracts data that is data parallax free 42. The extraction maybe done by where the subscriber and source provider reference businessmosaics are extracted from the same universal business mosaic at aselected frequency which is an integral multiple of the business mosaictime index. Additionally, the reference business mosaics may beextracted from the configured DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, resources and transferred to the resources sospecified by the BOD registration. A diagnostic function verifiescomprehensive registered attribute representation, data elementintegrity, and synchronization. Incomplete or defective data may bemathematically approximated from prior frames, autonomic recalculationby agent, or otherwise resolved by administrative judgment within BOD.Integral data is maintained within the specified privacy domain forsubsequent manipulation.

The BOD creates a virtual customer storefront 43. One embodiment ofcreating the virtual customer storefront includes interpretation ofreference asset business mosaics and profiling, which could be a processby which subscriber and service provider or source reference businessmosaics are overlaid, conditioned, interpreted, and profiled to quantifyand synchronize asset transfer behavior between entities. BOD overlaysor superposes reference business mosaics of both subscriber and sourceto provide a consensus view of business activity to both parties.Overlay is achieved by translating the subscriber asset states to theservice provider or source asset states, thereby providing an isolatedview of business activity between subscriber and service providerwithout distortion from other subscribing customers for the sameattributes. Conditioning of attribute data requires a discrete, butsubscriber adjustable stochastic model as specified within BODregistration to be constructed to quantify and represent the assettransfer behavior in time of asset attributes and associated parametervalues for all intermediate and end customer groups within the overlaidreference business mosaics. Conditioning also requires the incorporationof an ideal, specified stochastic asset transfer behavior model asspecified within BOD registration, uniquely defined for each attributeby a subscriber within BOD registration for the prevailing businessactivity level described within both reference business mosaics.Mathematical reconciliation of both ideal and representative stochasticmodels within a business mosaic provides a series of error signalscontaining projected discrete asset transfer behavior parameterdifferentials comparing prevailing source-subscriber asset transferbehavior to prevailing intermediate and end customer asset transferbehavior for the same attribute. Each error signal series for eachattribute is interpreted based on subscriber registered preference foreach reference business mosaic frame to either select a single orpermutation of error signals which the source may use to base subsequentasset transfer behavior. Selected parameter differentials areinterpreted to quantify corrected source asset transfer behavior betweensource and subscriber for compliance with ideal stochastic modelspecified transfer levels. Actual service levels are profiled on thebasis of committed source versus corrected levels of asset transferbehavior for each attribute. Profiles may be grouped together asspecified within the subscriber registration. All profilerepresentations are viewable by subscribers and service providers orsources based on registered access permissions through the use ofgraphical user interface or other file transfer mechanisms specifiedwithin core application preferences.

The following are optional, but not limiting, configurations ofautonomic business functions that utilize a BOD: autonomic agent formanagement of service level performance; autonomic procurement agent;autonomic agent for logistics management; autonomic agent for resourceand/or service consumption planning; autonomic agent for use inconnection with zero cash cycle.

An autonomic agent for management of service level performance mayinclude a BOD agent which functions to translate actual and desiredservice level profile differentials for individual or group attributesinto source transfer behavior correction inquiries, obtain confirmationsor responses to such requests and update actual service level profiles.Correction inquiry responses are based on the corrected attributeparameters evaluated with respect to source internal capacityexclusively dedicated to the subscriber and may be determined usingasset assembly optimization “what if software” such as commerciallysupplied by i2 Inc., resident within the registered resources. The BODagent to revise each attribute's actual service level profileincorporates correction responses presented and confirmed by the source.Correction cycles are administered at intervals specified within the BODregistration. Optionally, this BOD autonomic agent may be used tosupport a royalty transaction model whereby an asset royalty istransacted directly to the customer by the source while the asset itselfis transacted directly between the source and the customer's customer.Optionally, the BOD autonomic agent may be used to administer a variablefee for variable service level option whereby a subscriber may decide toaccept a higher or lower service level from a source in exchange forpremium fee or discount fee in assessed by source in connection withattribute transfers.

An autonomic procurement agent may include the BOD agent to repeatedlyexecute the purchase and receipt of goods at a point coincident in timewhen offsetting customer sales orders are received or imminent forspecific attributes. The agent utilizes source confirmed asset transferbehavior and coupled with actual service level profiles, confirmstransfer behavior with respect to the subscriber and subscriber'scustomer and initiates a procurement order on a an imminence interval,volume increment, prevailing source attribute cost, or other specifiedorder prerequisite specified within BOD registration. The agent obtainsauthorization from the subscriber based on BOD registration, forwardsand receives confirmation from the source for the order and updates theappropriate attribute parameter.

An autonomic agent for logistics management may include the BOD agent todetermine and administer logistics tasks required to deliver assets inaccordance with desired service level asset transfer behavior betweensource and subscriber. Tasks include by reference to specificationswithin BOD registration, but not be limited to, the evaluation ofcustomer destinations, desired arrival times, freight mode preference,and exportation or importation document assembly for inclusion inrequest for delivery placed with a logistic services provider. Theagent, through direct linkage with a selected logistics provider orthrough a competitive sourcing method such as BTM or directly with anexchange entity, would seek confirmation for the delivery request,authorize based on BOD registration, receive ship confirmation andcustomer receipt.

An autonomic agent for resource or service consumption planning mayinclude the BOD agent to forecast asset transfer behavior and determineor synchronize resource consumption with asset flows. Utilizing actualservice level profiles or groups of profiles extending through aspecified time period and frequency, the BOD agent can link respectivecommon attribute parameters within a subscriber or source ERP planningbill function to align future align asset consumption rates withprevailing business levels plus or minus subscriber or source definedarbitrary demand inputs. Additionally, the BOD agent may, based onpre-determined human resource, facility, services utilization, expenseor other consumed business attribute relationships to attribute transferbehavior, specified within BOD registration, determine profiles andalerts to anticipated over or under consumption of entity resources orservices.

An autonomic agent for use in connection with zero cash cycle expands toadminister customer invoicing and interface with the zero cash cycleapplication. Based on attribute transfer behavior, FOB terms, attributepricing, or other specified source requirements for attributes includedwithin BOD registration, the BOD agent may generate invoices for releaseto subscriber from the source asset provider. Working as a slave to thezero cash cycle application, and based on BOD subscriber and sourceregistrations, the BOD agent can manage interactive services such asrequests for financing of purchases and responses to dispositionsreturned from the zero cash cycle application. Optimal functionality byBOD agent and zero cash cycle application requires subscriber and sourceindependently register for zero cash cycle services.

Optionally, BOD may couple asset flow related management functions withother attribute evaluation schemes of synchronous or asynchronousbusiness activity representations between related business partners.

FIG. 7 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofBOD. All the elements are optional, can be applied in any combination,and the administrator is not limited by the elements mentioned.

The application source code and revision management 61 is designated fora module responsible for managing code revisions and/or insuresubscriber code interface compatibility. This module functions include,but are not limited to, distribution and maintenance of BOD software toregistered resources, such as with code updates, protocol revisions orpatches. Software compatibilities may be managed by monitoringsubscriber application revisions called by BOD functions. Optionally,diagnostic or other test routines may be created to insure ongoingfunctional compatibilities, or acceptable performance levels betweeninterfacing software elements.

The reservations and QOS management 62 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the orchestration of BOD execution across the scope ofregistered resources. This module's functionality extends to managementof successive BOD analytical and/or autonomic interpretative cycles fortime indexed reference business mosaics. Management tasks include Gridresource reservation and coordination based on program requirements,accounting for data exchange, completion of jobs, data requisites,concurrent DBAM applications, Grid supervisory functions or services(either current or future specified), and prioritization of otheradministrative module functions. Module functionality also includes theperformance monitoring of traffic or resource optimization which may beenabled by customized or third party programs currently or expected tobe marketed for such use.

The interruption management 63 is designated for a module responsiblefor monitoring and/or reconciliation of missing data elements within anattribute parameter array, missing subscribers, or malfunction ofregistered resources. This module's functionality includes theassignment of temporary, arbitrary parameter array data elements forbased on mathematical conditioning of prior data values from priorbusiness mosaic time indices and later substitution of correctionthrough conditioning with respect to values extracted from subsequentbusiness mosaics frames. Module functionality for monitoring andreconciliation for missing subscribers includes DBAM subscriber businesspartner monitoring and smoothing of trend behavior across and within agroup of subscriber customers. Trend behavior for a given missingattribute can be accomplished by applying, in proportion to businessactivity representation detected as missing by way of a source or groupof source attribute providers, trend behavior for like attributesquantified by subscribers present at the consumption level. Optionally,other known mathematical techniques that solve missing matrix dataelements may be incorporated within the module provided that datauncertainty is maintained within a realm of practical utilization.Module monitoring for the malfunction of registered resources includes acapability to temporarily order deployment of alternate resources in theevent of detected resource operating error. Optionally, commerciallyavailable resource monitoring utilities may be incorporated within themodule to support its intended function.

The BOD attribute and interpretation index 64 is designated for a moduleresponsible for maintaining the data archiving of attributes and theirrespective parameters, interpretations made from the parameters, and/orautonomic function results accessible for interruption management,subscriber or service provider specified exportation for secondaryanalysis or other permitted usage such as for additional derivedautonomic business functions. The index module also may record theresource location of stored data archives.

The BOD user and application interfaces 65 is designated for a moduleresponsible for managing BOD user interface configurations.Functionality of the module includes, but is not limited to, maintenanceand periodic update of user interfaces permitted or restricted for useby DBAM administrators or clients. Interfaces are defined GUI's or otherinterface methods available on any user or administrative hardwareaccess platform for the purpose of viewing, managing or applying the BODoperation. Access and selection of interfaces would be specified basedon subscriber registration or DBAM administrative permissions.

The security 66 is designated for a module responsible for managing thesecurity and management of secure information transfer between BODspecified resources and within and between proprietary or other domains.Module functionality includes the logging of session access to resourcesand information based on specified permission and user, as well aslogging of proprietary information exported transferred to specifiedresources. The module provides the subscriber and DBAM with a mutualview of permissible and non-permissible access and information activityand optionally may be used by subscriber or administrator to override orcancel registered permissions. The module defers to the DBAM securitymodule for the administration of overall DBAM intrusion, data encodingand other state of the art management methods to securely manageresources and the network supporting DBAM and 0CC.

The BOD administration 67 is designated for a module responsible forproviding administrative control over all BOD functions. Key modulefunctionality includes, but is not limited to, diagnostic and/orprioritized management of subscriber initialization and BOD applicationfunctions, as well as BOD modules within the administrativearchitecture. The module also is a slave to the DBAM administrativemodule and manages coordination and priority of resources utilizationrequests, security, referencing indexing of data in relation to the DBAMadministrative module. Concurrent function of BOD with addition internalDBAM applications such as BTM, PBAM, 0CC or others may be within amaster or slave controlled context by the BOD administration module tothe extent desired, higher level specified interactions betweenapplications warrant certain prioritization or sequencing of computationor functions.

The BOD external third party interface and control 68 is designated fora module responsible for controlling BOD functionality with internal orexternal logistics or warehousing management services. Concurrentfunction of BOD with logistics management services is limited to theexchange of certain attribute data, including but not limited toattribute parameter data based on subscriber preference, working withoutexplicit QoS controls between BOD and third party operations.Optionally, the BOD administrative module may be embedded within thefabric of a third party logistics or warehousing service as a master orslave controller for the purpose of expanding synergy functions withDBAM such as applying QoS controls to forecast logistics resources inspecific locations, anticipate warehousing volume, synchronize assettransport between dissimilar business partner groups, or other germanefunctions.

The BOD services and subscriber billing 69 is designated for a moduleresponsible for providing rate schedules for BOD services for subscriberconfirmation during registration. The module is a slave to the DBAMbilling module for interval usage and direct subscriber billing andaccount consolidation, or for billing of BOD service on an account basisto a service provider for resale to a client.

Some other optional routines and modules which might exist include, butare not limited to, additional software routines within each module maybe incorporated to support expanded BOD administrative functionality forsubscriber or service provider specified business activity attributemanagement applications. Additionally, other optional modules may beadded to the BOD administrative architecture for evolution or expansionof functional performance, application interfaces, security capability,diagnostics, or to satisfy incremental subscriber specified businesscapability.

FIG. 8 is a general block diagram for a method for zero cash cycle(0CC). 0CC allows a business to utilize a universal business activitybusiness mosaic created by a DBAM engine, or a functional equivalentagent, to derive an entity's near or real time asset conversion riskprofile from the interpretation of concatenated entity asset conversionsand other specified risk determinants within time-indexed asset businessmosaics. Purposes include, but are not limited by, deriving and/orproviding of risk management or credit services. Any combination of thepurposes may also be applied.

Instant advantages of 0CC include, but are not limited to: (i) It may beincorporated by commercial lenders or Moody's KMV/Stucky's Nova Seriescommercial risk management solutions to complete loan formulas necessaryto classify loans, and establish rates in connection with the creationof commercial raw material purchase credit facilities, funded bysellers; (ii) It may be used to electronically and actively monitorentity's performance or payment risk profile, or administer loanavailabilities; (iii) Method may comply with Basel Capital Accord IIOperational Risk Management Standards for commercial lenders, aregulation mandated by the Federal Reserve in 2005; (iv) Method mayenable a new prime (or sub-prime) lending rate loan product for sellers(to fund) through a low cost means of quantifying pay/performance risksfor vast client and base of qualified entities that typically buyinventories. The product costs significantly less than self-fundedseller fast pay discounts, while actually extending terms to a qualifiedbuyer; (v) Loan products sustained by this method may also be used inconnection with the on-line exchange financing of commercial materials;(vi) Method may enable the creation of business credit scores analogousto Fair Isaac Company (FICO) scores for consumers.

Initially, the 0CC may require a registration and/or initialization 41which may request, either by human or computer, any combination, but isnot limited by, the following: 0CC service election; 0CC resourceregistration and access permissions; attribute registration; 0CC coreapplication performances preferences; and 0CC autonomic functionpreferences.

The 0CC services election includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity alters the requisite DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration to include election of 0CC services.Service elections may include options such as: selection of autonomicfunction, choice of application service levels, service rates, period ofsubscription, scope of deployment within entity, or other relatedfee/non-fee service options based on subscriber preference.

The 0CC resource registration and access permissions includes, but isnot limited by, the process by which an entity expands the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, registration to includeinternal entity or third party compute resource, storage, networkresources, and access permissions for operation, and administration of0CC. Access to resources and permission to access data, run programs anddistribute processed data is securely restricted within the DBAM engine,or a functionally equivalent agent, unless otherwise specified byentity. In accordance with resource registration, DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, may require deployment of thin clientsoftware on entity resources in connection with the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, host, or alternatively be completelyhosted by the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent. Also inaccordance with resource registration, 0CC user interfaces areconfigured for and accessible by entity, or users designated by entitiessuch as contracted service providers.

The attribute registration includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration to select a list of business attributesfor inclusion by autonomic application within 0CC, based upon the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, attributes alreadyregistered and mapped between entities. Optionally, mapping may beexpanded for authorization of some or all business attribute parameterdistributions to 0CC third party service providers.

The 0CC core application performance preferences includes, but is notlimited to, the process by which the subscriber or source expands theDBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, registration toincluded certain attribute parameters and designate risk managementmodels on behalf of a lender or risk management service provider, orother for use in profiling a source or subscriber's near or real timeattribute conversion risk. The DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration is also expanded to include certainattribute parameters and designate cash flow management models for usein profiling source or subscriber's near or real time cash flow.Attribute parameters required to profile risk may include, but are notlimited to, those describing attribute transfer behavior for assets,designation of reference sales prices of discrete source or subscriberassets, accounts payable or accounts receivables records, contract inforce records, or other parameters beyond those included withinattribute transfer behavior summaries within the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, required by specified risk managementmodels. Stochastic mathematical or logical risk management models basedon typical industry loan loss, payment risk and performance risk, assetvaluation approximation formulae across a reference business mosaic maybe selected by the source or subscriber at time of 0CC registration orimported lender or third party risk management service models selected.Attribute parameters required to profile cash flow may include, but arenot limited to those describing attribute transfer behavior for cash orother parameters beyond those included within attribute transferbehavior summaries within the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalentagent, and required by specified cash flow management models. Stochasticmodels utilized in connection with standard FASB procedures forcalculating cash flow may be selected or amended by the source orsubscriber at the time of 0CC registration. Generated risk profiles maybe evaluated by specified attribute groupings and generated at specifiedintervals. Cash flow profiles for an enterprise may be generated atspecified intervals.

The 0CC autonomic function preferences includes, but is not limited to,the process by which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, registration to include subscriberdefined threshold values or groupings for analysis of attributeparameters, incorporation of intelligence yielding subroutines, orlinkages with other DBAM engines, or a functionally equivalent agents,or external applications. Threshold values and groupings specified forthe analysis of attribute parameters related to risk may include, butare not limited to payment risk, performance risk, loan loss, assetvaluation, receivables purchase discounts, lending availability andcredit limits, loan classifications relationships to risk profiles,securitization relationships to availabilities, loan call recoveryperiods, cash maintenance limit for influx, cash maintenance limit forsurplus, payables and receivables transaction limit alerts, receivablesfinancing alerts, and profile update frequencies assigned to riskmanagement, loan monitoring and loan administration subroutines.Intelligence yielding subroutines may include but not be limited by: (i)lenders or third party risk management service provider risk modelswhich manipulate attribute parameters related to risk to derive aspecified score or other quantitative method of reducing a subscriber orsource's business risk down to a finite set of meaningful meta-riskprofile measures; (ii) unique loan monitoring subroutines supplied bylending institutions and used to satisfy regulatory and ongoing internalloan management duties; or (iii) loan administration subroutines such asfor the management of revolving credit facilities based on the regular,comprehensive evaluation of source or subscriber financial fitness.Linkages specified for function of 0CC with other DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, applications or external applicationsinclude, but are not limited to: (i) BOD, as a slave for the purpose ofrequesting new loan evaluation with a lender, or transaction financingapproval using and existing line of credit, (ii) BTM, as a slave for thepurpose of requesting a new loan evaluation with a lender, ortransaction financing approval using and existing line of credit, (iii)lender or third party risk management service provider, as a master orslave, depending upon the residence of the risk management operationrelative to the lender or third party, (iv) securitization entity, as aslave to provide specified profiles. Additionally, GUI, filetransfer/distribution preferences and permissions may be required tosupport the proprietary display of all autonomic function preferences inuse by the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent, and 0CC.

The 0CC extracts data that is data parallax free 42. The extraction maybe done by where the subscriber and source reference business mosaicsare extracted from the universal business mosaic at a selectedfrequency, which is an integral multiple of the business mosaic timeindex. The reference business mosaics may then be extracted from theconfigured DBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's,resources and transferred to the resources so specified by the 0CCregistration. A diagnostic function verifies comprehensive registeredattribute representation, data element integrity, and/orsynchronization. Incomplete or defective data may be mathematicallyapproximated from prior frames, autonomic recalculation by agent, orotherwise resolved by administrative judgment within 0CC. Integral datamay be maintained within the specified privacy domain for subsequentmanipulation.

The 0CC creates an entity's real time asset conversion risk profile 44.One embodiment of creating this profile includes interpretation ofreference asset business mosaics and profiling, which could be a processby which risk management models are applied across reference businessmosaics to determine the collective source-subscriber asset conversionrisk profile, successive source-subscriber conversion risk profiles (asthe subscriber becomes the new “source”) and to profile source orsubscriber cash flows. The conversion risk profile may be constructed byconditioning the attribute parameter elements used to support typicalrisk models employed by lending institutions, risk management serviceproviders, or required by regulatory agencies within the source andsubscriber reference business mosaics. The elements include, but are notlimited to asset market valuation, entity payment performance, asset toreceivables conversion, or others specified within 0CC registration by asource or subscriber on behalf of a lender or risk management serviceprovider. Asset valuations are conditioned from the reference businessmosaics through the determination of a series of translated discounts(from a chosen entity asset reference price) integrated at each entityresale interval from intermediate to end markets and correspondinglyapplied to the source or subscriber entity's specific sale asset price.Based on 0CC registration, intermediate, end market or a permutation ofmarket discounts, as specified within the 0CC registration may be usedto assign a current valuation to a source or subscriber attribute.Entity payment performance is conditioned from the reference businessmosaics through evaluation of a source or subscriber's cash balance,invoice payment record, or other attribute specified within the 0CCregistration by the source or subscriber on behalf of a lender or riskmanagement service provider. Conditioning of asset to receivables riskconversion is achieved through the application of a discrete, lender orrisk management service provider specified stochastic model as specifiedwithin 0CC registration to be constructed to quantify and represent theasset transfer behavior in time of source or subscriber assetattributes. Using such a stochastic model, asset conversionprobabilities may be assessed at each successive resale point based onprevailing asset transfer behavior between consecutive source andsubscriber entities, or other factors such as contracts in forcespecified within the 0CC registration. Conversion risks may bearbitrarily combined for successive resale points through to the endmarket using additional conditioning models to accommodate additionalrisk evaluation perspectives based on 0CC registration. The basicelements used to support typical payment and performance risk modelsconditioned from the reference business mosaic may be assembled todetermine the collective source-subscriber asset conversion riskprofiles using pre-defined lender or risk management service providermodels specified within the 0CC registration. Profiles can be grouped byattribute class or parameter type, source group, subscriber group,entity class (such as industry), regions or other dimensions in supportof additional risk evaluations, such as for the assignment of creditscoring schemes, quantifying of risk for broad categories of attributesacross multiple entities, or identification of asset valuations withrespect to asset transfer behavior across broad categories of attributesand entities. Profiles can be generated from reference matrixextractions at regular intervals for incorporation within riskmonitoring models or schemes, also specified within the 0CCregistrations of sources and subscribers on behalf of lenders or riskmanagement service providers. Cash flow profiles are determined based onpayable balances and timing of obligations, receivables balances andtiming of receipts, and may be expanded to incorporate otherdiscretionary attribute elements such as employee payroll expense, orcapital expense, or other related attributes included within the 0CCregistration by the subscriber. Cash flow profiles are generated usingFASB defined formulae or otherwise utilize schemes specified within thesubscriber 0CC registration. All profile representations are viewable bysubscribers, sources and service providers based on registered accesspermissions through the use of graphical user interface or other filetransfer mechanisms specified within core application preferences.

The following are optional, but not limiting, configurations ofautonomic business functions that utilize a 0CC: autonomic riskmanagement agent; autonomic loan administration agent; autonomic workingcapital forecasting agent; and autonomic agent for asset securitization.

An autonomic risk management agent may include a 0CC agent as a platformto provide risk management services to third party credit ratingagencies, risk management services, such as Moody's, or insuranceactuarial services, on behalf of subscribers and source registrants.Risk management services could range in scope from the export of riskinformation or generated risk profiles in groupings or formats andfrequencies pre-defined by third party agencies or services, byembedding third party agency or services' risk evaluation or managementschemes within 0CC, such as for credit score assignment and entity orattribute monitoring, or other content exchange based on source andsubscriber approval and 0CC registration. The representations ofservices generated by the autonomic agent are viewable by subscribers,sources and/or service providers through 0CC and the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, based on registered access permissionsthrough the use of graphical user interface or other file transfermechanism.

An autonomic loan administration agent may include a 0CC agent toprovide loan evaluation, administrative and or monitoring services tocommercial lending institutions or their risk management serviceproviders. Loan evaluation, administration and monitoring managementservices can range in scope from the export of risk information orgenerated risk profiles in formats and frequencies pre-defined bylenders or third party services, by embedding lender or third partyservices' pre-defined administrative or monitoring schemes within 0CC.Loan evaluation services may include determination of loan loss based onthe deterioration of entity asset values within prevailing or projectedmarket conditions reflected in attribute parameter profiles, source orsubscriber on time payment history, or historical and current asset riskconversion, or other criteria specified by lenders and included bysources and subscribers for securitized loans or loans which are notsecuritized. Loan evaluation services could support the offering bylenders of securitized or loans which are not securitized products, suchas for the discount purchase of receivables by lenders from sellers(sources) and the offer of extended terms to buyers (subscribers), atcompetitive rates based on the discernment of lender approved buyer riskevaluation levels. Active electronic loan administration and monitoringservices include the determination of lending availability based oncontracted lending rates and credit limits along with autonomicinteraction with lender approval of source-subscriber purchases such asthrough BOD or BTM, or include the performance of other lenderadministrative tasks specified within 0CC registration. Additionally,active electronic loan administration and monitoring services includethe refresh of asset risk, loan risk or other specified profiles, atspecified frequencies and the export of profile update to lenders ortheir risk management service providers collectively included within the0CC registration. Loan monitoring services could also support new loanclassification, or the favorable re-classification of existing loanswithin a lender's portfolio based on the incorporation of 0CC riskevaluation criteria not present when the loan formula, or rate andclassification system employed by the lender, was originally applied todetermine the loan product. Based on evaluation of existing oradditional specified risk profiles within the 0CC registration, a lendercould effect loan reclassification and experience favorable impact onportfolio earnings or mandated reserves. In its current or modifiedform, 0CC active electronic loan administration and monitoring servicesmay also comply with current or evolved regulatory requirements forcredit risk modeling under current or subsequent revisions of the BaselCapital Accord. The representations of services generated by theautonomic agent are viewable by subscribers, sources and serviceproviders through 0CC and DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalentagent, based on registered access permissions through the use ofgraphical user interface or other file transfer mechanism.

An autonomic working capital forecasting agent may include a 0CC agentto forecast near or real time working capital requirements for cashcycle management based on business activity reflected within asubscriber reference business mosaic frame. Working capital forecastsmay be determined from modeling cash flow profiles generated fromsuccessive reference business mosaic extractions, whereby thresholdlevels for cash influx or surplus may be specified within subscriber 0CCregistration. Cash cycles may be managed utilizing late receivables payalerts, early payables alerts, 0CC enabling financing options forreceivables, or other subscriber specified criteria. The representationsof services generated by the autonomic agent are viewable bysubscribers, sources and service providers through 0CC and DBAM based onregistered access permissions through the use of graphical userinterface or other file transfer mechanism.

An autonomic agent for asset securitization may include a 0CC agent as aplatform to support the securitization of entity attributes to theextent that markets develop for the purchase and sale of quantifiableand tangible classes of attributes. For this application, 0CC couldprovide verification of the existence in abundance, ownership, and riskof conversion for designated class attributes, for such a commodity ascomputer memory, in accordance with securitization guidelines mandatedby a regulatory body. Unless otherwise specified within 0CC subscriberregistrations, verification of attributes would be determined throughthe use of asset risk conversion profiles and communicated to thirdparties utilizing 0CC and DBAM. The representations of servicesgenerated by the autonomic agent are viewable by subscribers, sourcesand/or service providers through 0CC and DBAM engine, or a functionallyequivalent agent, based on registered access permissions through the useof graphical user interface or other file transfer mechanism.

Optionally, 0CC may couple risk and cash flow management functions withother non-DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent's, attributeevaluation schemes of synchronous or asynchronous business activityrepresentations between related business partners. 0CC may alternativelybe coupled to operate with other DBAM engine, or functionally equivalentagent's, applications such as BTM or BOD in the context of a serviceprovider offering or value add service, or to compound autonomicsynergies for an individual subscribers.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator of0CC. All the elements are optional, can be applied in any combination,and the administrator is not limited by the elements mentioned.

The application source code and revision management 71 is designated fora module for management of 0CC software, code revisions and/or insuresubscriber code interface compatibility. Key module functions includedistribution and maintenance of 0CC software to registered resources,such as with code updates, protocol revisions or patches. Softwarecompatibilities are managed by monitoring subscriber applicationrevisions called by 0CC functions. Optionally, diagnostic or other testroutines may be created to insure ongoing functional compatibilities, oracceptable performance levels between interfacing software elements.

The reservations and QOS management 72 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the orchestration of 0CC execution across the scope ofregistered resources. Key module functionality extends to management ofsuccessive 0CC analytical and autonomic interpretative cycles for timeindexed reference business mosaics. Management tasks include Gridresource reservation and coordination based on program requirements,accounting for data exchange, completion of jobs, data requisites,concurrent DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent's,applications, Grid supervisory functions or services (either current orfuture specified), and prioritization of other administrative modulefunctions. Module functionality also includes the performance monitoringof traffic or resource optimization which may be enabled by customizedor third party programs currently or expected to be marketed for suchuse.

The interruption management 73 is designated for a module responsiblefor the monitoring for and reconciliation of missing data elementswithin an attribute parameter array, missing subscribers, or malfunctionof registered resources. Key module functionality includes theassignment of temporary, arbitrary parameter array data elements forbased on mathematical conditioning of prior data values from priorbusiness mosaic time indices and later substitution of correctionthrough conditioning with respect to values extracted from subsequentbusiness mosaics frames. Module functionality for monitoring andreconciliation for missing subscribers includes DBAM subscriber businesspartner monitoring and smoothing of trend behavior across and within agroup of subscriber customers. Trend behavior for a given missingattribute is accomplished by applying, in proportion to businessactivity representation detected as missing by way of a source or groupof source attribute providers, trend behavior for like attributesquantified by subscribers present at the consumption level. Optionally,other known mathematical techniques which solve missing matrix dataelements may be incorporated within the module provided that datauncertainty is maintained within a realm of practical utilization.Module monitoring for the malfunction of registered resources includes acapability to temporarily order deployment of alternate resources in theevent of detected resource operating error. Optionally, commerciallyavailable resource monitoring utilities may be incorporated within themodule to support its intended function.

The 0CC attribute and interpretation index 74 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the maintaining the data archiving of attributes andtheir respective parameters, interpretations made from the parameters,and autonomic function results accessible for interruption management,subscriber or service provider specified exportation for secondaryanalysis or other permitted usage such as for additional derivedautonomic business functions. The index module also records the resourcelocation of stored data archives.

The 0CC user and application interfaces 75 is designated for a modulethat is responsible for managing 0CC user interface configurations.Functionality of the module includes maintenance and periodic update ofuser interfaces permitted or restricted for use by the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, administrators or clients. Interfacesare defined GUI's or other interface methods available on any user oradministrative hardware access platform for the purpose of viewing,managing or applying the 0CC operation. Access to and selection ofinterfaces would be specified based on subscriber registration or DBAMengine, or a functionally equivalent agent's, administrativepermissions.

The security 76 is designated for a module that is responsible formanaging the security and management of secure information transferbetween 0CC specified resources and within and between proprietary orother domains. Module functionality includes the logging of sessionaccess to resources and information based on specified permission anduser, as well as logging of proprietary information exported transferredto specified resources. The module provides the subscriber and the DBAMengine, or a functionally equivalent agent, with a mutual view ofpermissible and non-permissible access and information activity andoptionally may be used by subscriber or administrator to override orcancel registered permissions. The module defers to the DBAM engine, ora functionally equivalent agent's, security module for theadministration of overall DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalentagent's, intrusion, data encoding and other state of the art managementmethods to securely manage resources and the network supporting the DBAMengine, or a functionally equivalent agent, and 0CC.

The 0CC administration 77 is designated for a module responsible forproviding administrative control over all 0CC functions. Key modulefunctionality includes diagnostic and prioritized management ofsubscriber initialization and 0CC application functions, as well as 0CCmodules within the administrative architecture. The module also is aslave to the DBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's,administrative module and manages coordination and priority of resourcesutilization requests, security, referencing indexing of data in relationto the DBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's,administrative module. Concurrent function of 0CC with addition internalDBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent's, applications such asBTM, PBAM, BOD or others may be within a master or slave controlledcontext by the 0CC administration module to the extent desired, higherlevel specified interactions between applications warrant certainprioritization or sequencing of computation or functions.

The 0CC external third party interface and control 78 is designated fora module responsible for controlling 0CC functionality with lenders orrisk management services. Concurrent function of 0CC with lenders orrisk management service is limited to the exchange of risk profileinformation, including but not limited to attribute parameter data basedon subscriber preference, working without QoS controls between 0CC andlending or risk management operations. Optionally, the 0CCadministrative module may be embedded within the fabric of a third partylender or risk management service as a master or slave controller forthe purpose of expanding synergy functions with the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, such as applying QoS to control regularrisk monitoring frequency, loan administration, or other germanefunctions.

The 0CC services and subscriber billing 79 is designated for a moduleresponsible for providing rate schedules for 0CC services for subscriberconfirmation during registration. The module is a slave to the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, billing module forinterval usage and direct subscriber billing and account consolidation,or for billing of 0CC service on an account basis to a service providerfor resale to a client.

Some other optional routines and m which might exist include, but arenot limited to, additional software routines within each module may beincorporated to support expanded 0CC administrative functionality forsubscriber or service provider specified business activity attributemanagement applications. Other modules may be added to the 0CCadministrative architecture for evolution or expansion of functionalperformance, application interfaces, security capability, diagnostics,or to satisfy incremental subscriber specified business capability.

FIG. 10 is a general block diagram for a method for portfolio businessactivity management (PBAM). PBAM allows for coincident mapping of endmarket pricing and/or source market costing contained withintime-indexed asset business mosaics. Its purpose includes, but is notlimited to, proactively managing portfolio margin performance.

Instant advantages of PBAM include, but are not limited to: (i) Methodmay be used internally by to primarily derive, mandate and prioritizemargin preserving forward asset supply pricing from existing partners,proactively initiate value engineering efforts where costing targets areprohibitive, or plan and execute transition strategies to higher marginportfolio products; (ii) Method may be used by Original DesignManufacturing Service Providers (as a tool) supply a revenuableportfolio management service to multiple subscribing DBAM entities.

Initially, the PBAM may require a registration and/or initialization 41which may request, either by human or computer, any combination, but notlimited by, the following: PBAM services election; PBAM resourceregistration and access permissions; attribute registration; PBAMinterpretation preferences; and PBAM autonomic function preferences.

The PBAM services election includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity, by way of a user interface, alters the requisiteDBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, registration toinclude election of PBAM services. Service elections may include optionssuch as: selection of autonomic function, choice of application servicelevels, service rates, period of subscription, scope of deploymentwithin entity, or other related fee/non-fee service options based onsubscriber preference.

The PBAM resource registration and access permissions includes, but isnot limited to, the process by which an entity expands DBAM engine's, ora functionally equivalent agent's, registration to include internalentity or third party compute resource, storage, network resources, andaccess permissions for privacy domain operation, and administration ofPBAM. One embodiment of the registered resources is depicted in FIG. 4,but others may vary with the architecture of the entity. Access toresources and permission to access certain data, run programs anddistribute processed data is securely restricted within the DBAM engine,or a functionally equivalent agent, unless otherwise specified byentity. In accordance with resource registration, the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, may require deployment of thin clientsoftware on entity resources in connection with the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, host, or alternatively be completelyhosted by the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent. Also inaccordance with resource registration, PBAM user interfaces areconfigured for and accessible by entity, or users designated by entitiessuch as contracted service providers.

The attribute registration includes, but is not limited by, the processby which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration to select a list of business attributesfor inclusion by autonomic application within PBAM, based upon the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, attributes alreadyregistered and mapped between entities. Optionally, mapping may beexpanded for authorization of some or all business attribute parameterdistributions to PBAM third party service providers.

The PBAM interpretation preferences includes, but is not limited by, theprocess by which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration for attribute interpretation.Interpretation includes any third party service relationship for thepurpose of administering PBAM on behalf of a subscriber, or additionalexpense attribute parameter specifications, including chart of accountreferences, grouping, or allocation schemes necessary to support theelection of product, gross or operating margin profile analyses.Additionally, GUI, file transfer/distribution preferences andpermissions are required to support the proprietary display ofinterpretative results.

The PBAM autonomic function preferences includes, but is not limited by,the process by which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, registration to include subscriberdefined threshold values or groupings for analysis of attributeparameters, in addition to linkage to other DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, applications. These values may be usedto form an intelligent rule base along with other subscriber definedperformance criteria necessary for, each autonomic function to provideits subscriber with logical business recommendations. Parameterthreshold values associated with each attribute include, but are notlimited to product, gross or operating margin performance, cumulativemargin performance, return on investment and attribute lifecycleperiods, advance alert intervals for adverse parameter performance,elasticity sensitivity and post-discount/incentive margin limitationwith respect to margin impact. Parameter threshold values associatedwith each subscriber attribute include, but are not limited to grossprofit, volume, or other designated subscriber account performancecriteria. Additionally, subscriber attribute groupings for analysis maybe specified by, but not limited to class, regional designations, orparameter type. Service provider subscriber attribute groupings foranalysis may be specified by, but not limited to account, class,division, region, or other designated subscriber account grouping. Otherautonomic applications may be specified by the subscriber or serviceprovider within the DBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's,registration for operation in parallel to PBAM such as BTM, BOD, 0CC orother attribute business mosaics constructed between business partners.At subscriber or service provider option, additional user definedfunctions such as expanded user interface, file transfer or computesteps between autonomic applications may embody the complete preferencespecification. GUI, file transfer/distribution preferences andpermissions are required to support the proprietary display of allautonomic function preferences in use by the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, and PBAM.

The PBAM extracts data that is data parallax free 42. The extraction maybe done by where the subscriber and or service provider referencebusiness mosaics are extracted from the same universal business mosaicat a selected frequency which is an integral multiple of the businessmosaic time index. The reference business mosaics are extracted from theconfigured DBAM engine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's,resources and transferred to the resources so specified by the PBAMregistration. A diagnostic function verifies comprehensive registeredattribute representation, data element integrity, and synchronization.Incomplete or defective data may be mathematically approximated fromprior frames, autonomic recalculation by agent, or otherwise resolved byadministrative judgment within PBAM. Integral data is maintained withinthe specified privacy domain for subsequent manipulation. Dataextractions are viewable by subscribers and service providers based onregistered access permissions through the use of graphical userinterface or other file transfer mechanism.

The PBAM calculates end market pricing and/or source market cost 45. Oneembodiment of calculating the end market pricing and/or source marketcosting includes interpretation of reference asset business mosaics andprofiling, which may incorporate a process by which subscriber andservice provider (source) reference business mosaics are overlaid,conditioned and interpreted to determine asset cost recovery and marginperformance levels. If a subscriber has contracted portfolio managementthrough an ODM or similar business model, PBAM overlays or superposesboth references business mosaics to provide a consensus view of businessactivity to both parties. Overlay is achieved by translating thesubscriber asset states to the service provider (or source) assetstates, thereby providing an isolated view of business activity betweensubscriber and service provider without distortion from othersubscribing customers for the same attributes. Conditioning of attributedata requires the assembly of prevailing attribute source element costtrends and reverse translation, proportionately applied from source tosubscriber attribute cost trends followed by incorporation into thesubscriber attribute costs. Additionally, competitive cost recoveriesfor end and intermediate customers are assembled for the same attribute,and applied to subscriber attribute pricing to establish a profile ofmarket discounts. Attribute product margins profiles are conditionedfrom the merging of cost recovery and market discount profiles.Optionally, product margin profiles may be extended to determine grossmargin profiles through incorporation of other cost of goods sold costelements designated by subscriber as associated with each attribute.Optionally, gross margin profiles may be extended to determine attributeoperating margins through incorporation of activity based expensesassociated with attributes and specified within DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, core application performancepreferences. All profile representations are viewable by subscribers andservice providers based on registered access permissions through the useof graphical user interface or other file transfer mechanisms specifiedwithin core application preferences.

The following are optional, but not limiting, configurations ofautonomic business functions that utilize a PBAM: PBAM autonomicportfolio management agent; PBAM autonomic portfolio services managementagent; and PBAM function as an autonomic sales management agent.

A PBAM autonomic portfolio management agent may include a PBAM agent totranslate margin profiles trends into asset cost recovery mandates forvalue engineering, cost bases for new products. Optionally, PBAMprojects transition points to successor portfolio products forattributes demonstrating poor return on investment. Optionally, PBAMidentifies portfolio elements that may demonstrate market elasticity andpresents specific volume price relationships. Optionally, PBAM functionsas an activity based product line management, providing the subscriberwith the ability to profile margin performance trends between designatedgroups of products. The representations generated from the translationof margin trends by the autonomic agent are viewable by subscribers andservice providers based on registered access permissions through the useof graphical user interface or other file transfer mechanism.

A PBAM autonomic portfolio services management agent may include a PBAMagent to provide autonomic portfolio management agent duties from theperspective of a third party service provider, such as an OriginalDesign Manufacturer to a subscriber. PBAM concurrently maintainsmultiple subscriber-service reference business mosaic overlays from oneanother to enable PBAM and service provider to manage accountsindependently and communicate management performance of attributeparameters to customers. Optionally, the PBAM agent may combine certainsubscriber source attribute elements together along with internalattributes, such as overhead expense, development expense, for thepurpose of profiling customer margin and assignment of sales price ratescales based on subscriber business activity. The representations ofservices generated by the autonomic agent are viewable by subscribersand service providers based on registered access permissions through theuse of graphical user interface or other file transfer mechanism.

A PBAM function as an autonomic sales management agent may include aPBAM agent to examine attribute elasticity by evaluation of attributesales variability with respect to changes in sales price, and impact oncumulative margins for that attribute. Based on registration preference,PBAM may determine promotional discounts, special sales incentivesoptions, or other specified sales intelligence derivable from theparticipating attribute parameters to effectively manage sales byportfolio element, segment or sales region, or other permutationpossible by manipulating registered attribute parameters. Therepresentations of services generated by the autonomic agent areviewable by based on registered access permissions through the use ofgraphical user interface or other file transfer mechanism.

Optionally, PBAM may couple portfolio management functions with othernon-DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent's, attributeevaluation schemes of synchronous or asynchronous business activityrepresentations between related business partners. PBAM mayalternatively be coupled to operate with other DBAM applications such asBTM, BOD or 0CC in the context of a service provider offering or valueadd service, or to compound autonomic synergies for an individualsubscribers.

FIG. 11 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofPBAM. All the elements are optional, can be applied in any combination,and the administrator is not limited by the elements mentioned.

The application source code and revision management 81 is designated fora module responsible to manage PBAM software, code revisions and insuresubscriber code interface compatibility. Key module functions includedistribution and maintenance of PBAM software to registered resources,such as with code updates, protocol revisions or patches. Softwarecompatibilities are managed by monitoring subscriber applicationrevisions called by PBAM functions. Optionally, diagnostic or other testroutines may be created to insure ongoing functional compatibilities, oracceptable performance levels between interfacing software elements.

The reservations and QOS management 82 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the orchestration of PBAM execution across the scope ofregistered resources. Key module functionality extends to management ofsuccessive PBAM analytical and autonomic interpretative cycles for timeindexed reference business mosaics. Management tasks include Gridresource reservation and coordination based on program requirements,accounting for data exchange, completion of jobs, data requisites,concurrent DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent's,applications, Grid supervisory functions or services (either current orfuture specified), and prioritization of other administrative modulefunctions. Module functionality also includes the performance monitoringof traffic or resource optimization which may be enabled by customizedor third party programs currently or expected to be marketed for suchuse.

The interruption management 83 is designated for a module responsiblefor the monitoring and/or reconciliation of missing data elements withinan attribute parameter array, missing subscribers, or malfunction ofregistered resources. Key module functionality includes the assignmentof temporary, arbitrary parameter array data elements for based onmathematical conditioning of prior data values from prior businessmosaic time indices and later substitution of correction throughconditioning with respect to values extracted from subsequent businessmosaics frames. Module functionality for monitoring and reconciliationfor missing subscribers includes DBAM engine, or functionally equivalentagent, subscriber business partner monitoring and smoothing of trendbehavior across and within a group of subscriber customers. Trendbehavior for a given missing attribute is accomplished by applying, inproportion to business activity representation detected as missing byway of a source or group of source attribute providers, trend behaviorfor like attributes quantified by subscribers present at the consumptionlevel. Optionally, other known mathematical techniques which solvemissing matrix data elements may be incorporated within the moduleprovided that data uncertainty is maintained within a realm of practicalutilization. Module monitoring for the malfunction of registeredresources includes a capability to temporarily order deployment ofalternate resources in the event of detected resource operating error.Optionally, commercially available resource monitoring utilities may beincorporated within the module to support its intended function.

The PBAM attribute and interpretation index 84 is designated for amodule responsible for the maintaining the data archiving of attributesand their respective parameters, interpretations made from theparameters, and autonomic function results accessible for interruptionmanagement, subscriber or service provider specified exportation forsecondary analysis or other permitted usage such as for additionalderived autonomic business functions. The index module also records theresource location of stored data archives.

The PBAM user and application interfaces 85 is designated for a modulethat is responsible for managing PBAM user interface configurations.Functionality of the module includes maintenance and periodic update ofuser interfaces permitted or restricted for use by the DBAM engine's, orfunctionally equivalent agent's, administrators or clients. Interfacesare defined GUI's or other interface methods available on any user oradministrative hardware access platform for the purpose of viewing,managing or applying the PBAM operation. Access to and selection ofinterfaces would be specified based on subscriber registration or theDBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, administrativepermissions.

The security 86 is designated for a module that is responsible formanaging the security and management of secure information transferbetween PBAM specified resources and within and between proprietary orother domains. Module functionality includes the logging of sessionaccess to resources and information based on specified permission anduser, as well as logging of proprietary information exported transferredto specified resources. The module provides the subscriber and the DBAMengine, or functionally equivalent agent, with a mutual view ofpermissible and non-permissible access and information activity andoptionally may be used by subscriber or administrator to override orcancel registered permissions. The module defers to the DBAM engine's,or functionally equivalent agent's, security module for theadministration of overall the DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalentagent's, intrusion, data encoding and/or other state of the artmanagement methods to securely manage resources and the networksupporting the DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent, and PBAM.

The PBAM administration 87 is designated for a module responsible forproviding administrative control over all PBAM functions. Key modulefunctionality includes diagnostic and prioritized management ofsubscriber initialization and PBAM application functions, as well asPBAM modules within the administrative architecture. The module also isa slave to the DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's,administrative module and manages coordination and priority of resourcesutilization requests, security, referencing indexing of data in relationto the DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, administrativemodule. Concurrent function of PBAM with addition applications such as0CC, BTM, BOD or others may be within a master or slave controlledcontext by the PBAM administration module to the extent desired, higherlevel specified interactions between applications warrant certainprioritization or sequencing of computation or functions.

The PBAM services and subscriber billing 88 is designated for a moduleresponsible for providing rate schedules for PBAM services forsubscriber confirmation during registration. The module is a slave tothe DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, billing modulefor interval usage and direct subscriber billing and accountconsolidation, or for billing of PBAM service on an account basis to aservice provider for resale to a client.

Some other optional routines and modules which might exist include, butare not limited to, additional software routines within each module maybe incorporated to support expanded PBAM administrative functionalityfor subscriber or service provider specified business activity attributemanagement applications. Other modules may be added to the PBAMadministrative architecture for evolution or expansion of functionalperformance, application interfaces, security capability, diagnostics,or to satisfy incremental subscriber specified business capability.

FIG. 12 is a general block diagram for a method for bid to market (BTM).BTM allows a business to prioritize management of competitive asset orservice cost recovery.

Instant advantages of BTM include, but are not limited to: (i) Methodmay be utilized by entities contract purchasing providers to assurecustomers of best price performance in connection with end marketpricing pressures; (ii) Method may be utilized by contract purchasingproviders to autonomously manage A, B, or C class voluminous costmanagement activity at low levels of interactive overhead; (iii) Methodmay be combined with commercial exchange (including reverse exchange)service providers to render a fully autonomic market driven procurementsolution; (iv) Method may be utilized in connection with an exchange and0CC derived financing solutions for purchase transactions basedpre-approved buyer credit.

Initially, the BTM may require a registration and/or initialization 41which may request, either by human or computer, any combination, but isnot limited by, the following: BTM services election; BTM resourceregistration and access permissions; attribute registration; BTM coreapplication performances preferences; and BTM autonomic functionpreferences.

The BTM services election includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity alters the requisite the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, registration to include election of BTMservices. Service elections may include options such as: selection ofautonomic function, choice of application service levels, service rates,period of subscription, scope of deployment within entity, or otherrelated fee/non-fee service options based on subscriber preference.

The BTM resource registration and access permissions includes, but isnot limited to, the process by which an entity expands the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, registration to includeinternal entity or third party compute resource, storage, networkresources, and access permissions for operation, and administration ofBTM. Access to resources and permission to access data, run programs anddistribute processed data is securely restricted within the DBAM engine,or a functionally equivalent agent, unless otherwise specified byentity. In accordance with resource registration, the DBAM engine, or afunctionally equivalent agent, may require deployment of thin clientsoftware on entity resources in connection with the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, host, or alternatively be completelyhosted by the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent. Also inaccordance with resource registration, BTM user interfaces areconfigured for and accessible by entity, or users designated by entitiessuch as contracted service providers.

The attribute registration includes, but is not limited to, the processby which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or a functionallyequivalent agent's, registration to select a list of business attributesfor inclusion by autonomic application within BTM, based upon the DBAMengine's, or a functionally equivalent agent's, attributes alreadyregistered and mapped between entities. Optionally, mapping may beexpanded for authorization of some or all business attribute parameterdistributions to BTM third party service providers.

The BTM core application performance preferences includes, but is notlimited to, the process by which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, ora functionally equivalent agent's, registration for attributeinterpretation. Interpretation of attributes requires verification ofthe most aggressive, but market linked cost recovery, compliance with aprioritization scheme that focuses cost recovery action to produce thatgreatest impact to the subscribing entity, and pursuit of alternatesourcing strategies. Verification of the most aggressive marketreflected behavior can be achieved through the specified utilization ofDBAM registration of like asset attributes, or optionally, through thesubscription to outside market commodity pricing trend or general markettrend data service for comparison to like asset attribute parameters.Cost recovery prioritization is achieved based on specification of assetattribute rank order criteria including attribute grouping orcontributive margin thresholds. Enabling alternate sourcing strategiesrequire the specification of a request for quote format, includingattribute parameter elements such as functional specification, volume,and phase-in date or other registered specifications required forpurchase. Additionally, GUI, file transfer/distribution preferences andpermissions may be required to support the proprietary display ofinterpretative results.

The BTM autonomic function preferences includes, but is not limited to,the process by which an entity expands the DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, registration to include subscriberdefined threshold values or groupings for analysis of attributeparameters, incorporation of intelligence yielding subroutines, orlinkages with other DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent's,or external applications. Threshold values and groupings specified forthe analysis of attribute parameters related to cost recovery mayinclude, but not be limited by solicitation bid response latitudes bysource, repetitive solicitation response limits by source,reverse-auction bid selection latitudes, and asset devaluationthresholds for dispatch to auctions for disposal. Subroutines definedwithin BTM registration may include intelligent rule bases used tonarrow and present reverse-auction bid results, or importation of a userdefined rule based for such application. Linkages to other DBAM engine,or a functionally equivalent agent, applications or externalapplications may include, but are not limited to: PBAM as a slave tosupport a third party service such as “best price assurance,” BOD as aslave to provide autonomic procurement support, with 0CC as a master toinitiate financing solutions for purchased attributes, or with externalreverse or conventional auction sites as masters and slaves, to initiatebid sessions, but to respond to exchange session results. Additionally,GUI, file transfer/distribution preferences and permissions are requiredto support the proprietary display of all autonomic function preferencesin use by the DBAM engine, or a functionally equivalent agent, and BTM.

The BTM extracts data that is data parallax free 42. The extraction maybe done by where the subscriber reference business mosaic is extractedfrom a universal business mosaic at a selected frequency which is anintegral multiple of the business mosaic time index. The referencebusiness mosaic is extracted from the configured DBAM engine's, or afunctionally equivalent agent's, resources and transferred to theresources so specified by the BTM registration. A diagnostic functionverifies comprehensive registered attribute representation, data elementintegrity, and synchronization. Incomplete or defective data may bemathematically approximated from prior frames, autonomic recalculationby agent, or otherwise resolved by administrative judgment within BTM.Integral data is maintained within the specified privacy domain forsubsequent manipulation.

The BTM creates a prioritization for competitive asset and/or servicecost 46. One embodiment of creating the prioritization includesinterpreting a reference asset business mosaic and profiling which maybe accomplished by a process by which subscriber reference businessmosaics are conditioned and/or by determining attribute marketvaluations and/or interpret and/or prioritize asset cost recoverylevels. Intermediate and end market valuations are represented withinthe business mosaic as series of translated discounts (from a chosenentity asset reference price) integrated at each entity resale intervalthrough to the end market and correspondingly applied to the referenceentity's specific sale asset price. Interpreted cost recoveriesrepresent the maximum market value deterioration discovered for aspecified entity asset in any incorporated state following its sale fromthe source entity. Final determination of cost recoveries requires thetranslation, integration and application of the host asset discounts tosource asset elements. Cost recoveries may be further refined bycomparison to market subscription services specified within the BTMregistration for spot market costs, or from within the universalbusiness activity mosaic for like asset classes at either entity orsource level. Prioritization of finalized cost recoveries for assetsprovided by a single source is determined on the basis of cumulativeimpact which may be based exclusively on volume or other entitypreference. In addition to prioritized source asset element costrecoveries, attributes such as specification, order status, inventorystatus, approved sources included within the reference business mosaicare assembled into a entity preference defined format, or request forquotation format for use in distribution.

The following are optional, but not limiting, configurations ofautonomic business functions that utilize a BTM: autonomic agent forcost recovery solicitation; autonomic agent for reverse-auction exchangeand bid impact presentation; and autonomic lead generator and feed forexchange brokerage services.

An autonomic agent for cost recovery solicitation may include a BTMagent to provide autonomic functions for cost recovery solicitation fromexisting sources. Market cost solicitation is accomplished through thedistribution of all relevant requests for quotation to the asset elementsource, soliciting a response to the cost recovery priorities. The BTMengine provides prompting and response management functions along withanalysis and presentation of sources responses based on user preferencessuch as acceptance or repetitive request limits, or others. The BTMEngine updates asset log attributes responses meeting or exceeding costrecovery thresholds, and isolates responses above both target and orspot market levels, as defined by preference, for disposition by entity.The BTM engine supports the cost recovery solicitation of all assetsregistered within the reference asset business mosaic.

An autonomic agent for reverse-auction exchange and bid impactpresentation may include a BTM agent to provide autonomic functions forsubmission of target cost levels based on asset recoveries for elementalasset to reverse auction venues for new source election. Based on entityregistered preferences, the BTM administers the selection, response andinterpretations of requested asset cost recoveries included withinrequests for quotation submitted to reverse-auction venues.

An autonomic lead generator and feed for exchange brokerage services mayinclude a BTM agent to provide autonomic functions for the submission ofassets selected based on devaluation preference to auction venues fordisposal sale. Based on target cost levels to conventional entitypreference, the BTM administers the selection, response andinterpretations of asset deposal sales responses from auction venues.

FIG. 13 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of an administrator ofBTM. All the elements are optional, can be applied in any combination,and the administrator is not limited by the elements mentioned.

The application source code and revision management 91 is designated fora module responsible for managing BTM software, code revisions andinsure subscriber code interface compatibility. Key module functionsinclude distribution and maintenance of BTM software to registeredresources, such as with code updates, protocol revisions or patches.Software compatibilities are managed by monitoring subscriberapplication revisions called by BTM functions. Optionally, diagnostic orother test routines may be created to insure ongoing functionalcompatibilities, or acceptable performance levels between interfacingsoftware elements.

The reservations and QOS management 92 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the orchestration of BTM execution across the scope ofregistered resources. Key module functionality extends to management ofsuccessive BTM analytical and autonomic interpretative cycles for timeindexed reference business mosaics. Management tasks include Gridresource reservation and coordination based on program requirements,accounting for data exchange, completion of jobs, data requisites,concurrent DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent, applications,Grid supervisory functions or services (either current or futurespecified), and prioritization of other administrative module functions.Module functionality also includes the performance monitoring of trafficor resource optimization which may be enabled by customized or thirdparty programs currently or expected to be marketed for such use.

The interruption management 93 is designated for a module responsiblefor the monitoring and reconciliation of missing data elements within anattribute parameter array, missing subscribers, or malfunction ofregistered resources. Key module functionality includes the assignmentof temporary, arbitrary parameter array data elements for based onmathematical conditioning of prior data values from prior businessmosaic time indices and later substitution of correction throughconditioning with respect to values extracted from subsequent businessmosaics frames. Module functionality for monitoring and reconciliationfor missing subscribers includes the DBAM engine's, or functionallyequivalent agent's, subscriber business partner monitoring and smoothingof trend behavior across and within a group of subscriber customers.Trend behavior for a given missing attribute is accomplished byapplying, in proportion to business activity representation detected asmissing by way of a source or group of source attribute providers, trendbehavior for like attributes quantified by subscribers present at theconsumption level. Optionally, other known mathematical techniques whichsolve missing matrix data elements may be incorporated within the moduleprovided that data uncertainty is maintained within a realm of practicalutilization. Module monitoring for the malfunction of registeredresources includes a capability to temporarily order deployment ofalternate resources in the event of detected resource operating error.Optionally, commercially available resource monitoring utilities may beincorporated within the module to support its intended function.

The BTM attribute and interpretation index 94 is designated for a moduleresponsible for the maintaining the data archiving of attributes andtheir respective parameters, interpretations made from the parameters,and autonomic function results accessible for interruption management,subscriber or service provider specified exportation for secondaryanalysis or other permitted usage such as for additional derivedautonomic business functions. The index module also records the resourcelocation of stored data archives.

The BTM user and application interfaces 95 is designated for a modulethat is responsible for managing BTM user interface configurations.Functionality of the module includes maintenance and periodic update ofuser interfaces permitted or restricted for use by the DBAM engine's, orfunctionally equivalent agent's, administrators or clients. Interfacesare defined GUI's or other interface methods available on any user oradministrative hardware access platform for the purpose of viewing,managing or applying the BTM operation. Access to and selection ofinterfaces would be specified based on subscriber registration or theDBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, administrativepermissions.

The security 96 is designated for a module that is responsible formanaging the security and management of secure information transferbetween BTM specified resources and within and between proprietary orother domains. Module functionality includes the logging of sessionaccess to resources and information based on specified permission anduser, as well as logging of proprietary information exported transferredto specified resources. The module provides the subscriber and the DBAMengine, or functionally equivalent agent, with a mutual view ofpermissible and non-permissible access and information activity andoptionally may be used by subscriber or administrator to override orcancel registered permissions. The module defers to the DBAM securitymodule for the administration of overall the DBAM engine's, orfunctionally equivalent agent's, intrusion, data encoding and otherstate of the art management methods to securely manage resources and thenetwork supporting the DBAM engine, or functionally equivalent agent,and BTM.

The BTM administration 97 is designated for a module responsible forproviding administrative control over all BTM functions. Key modulefunctionality includes diagnostic and prioritized management ofsubscriber initialization and BTM application functions, as well as BTMmodules within the administrative architecture. The module also is aslave to the DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's,administrative module and manages coordination and priority of resourcesutilization requests, security, referencing indexing of data in relationto the DBAM engine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, administrativemodule. Concurrent function of BTM with addition internal DBAM engine,or functionally equivalent agent, applications such as 0CC, PBAM, BOD orothers may be within a master or slave controlled context by the BTMadministration module to the extent desired, higher level specifiedinteractions between applications warrant certain prioritization orsequencing of computation or functions.

The BTM external third party interface and control 98 is designated fora module responsible for controlling BTM functionality with third partyexchange service providers. Concurrent function of BTM with third partyreverse or conventional bid for goods exchanges is limited to theexchange of bid session initiation and response information, includingbut not limited to attribute parameter data working without QoS controlsbetween BTM and exchange activity. Optionally, this BTM administrativemodule may be embedded within the fabric of a third party exchange as amaster or slave controller for the purpose of expanding synergyfunctions such as purchase volume forecasting, deriving groupprocurement benefits opportunities based upon known buyer interest,applying QoS control to overall quotation and bid session performance,or other relevant capabilities.

The BTM services and subscriber billing 99 is designated for a moduleresponsible for providing rate schedules for BTM services for subscriberconfirmation during registration. The module is a slave to the DBAMengine's, or functionally equivalent agent's, billing module forinterval usage and direct subscriber billing and account consolidation,or for billing of BTM service on an account basis to a service providerfor resale to a client.

Some other optional routines and modules which may exist include, butare not limited to, additional software routines within each module maybe incorporated to support expanded BTM administrative functionality forsubscriber or service provider specified business activity attributemanagement applications. Other modules may be added to the BTMadministrative architecture for evolution or expansion of functionalperformance, application interfaces, security capability, diagnostics,or to satisfy incremental subscriber specified business capability.

FIG. 14 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of the hardware andsoftware configuration for the DBAM engine. It is not meant to belimiting in anyway.

A functioning Discrete Business Activity Management engine network andcompute platform incorporates three types of major compute and networkdomains: (i) the DBAM domain 17, (ii) the subscriber domain 18 and (iii)a third party domain 16. Each domain may typically comprises of an arrayof gateway, administrative, application, daemon, database, cluster orother types of servers linked to storage networks and other enterpriseintranet and extranet topographical components such as firewalls. TheDBAM domain controls the function of all DBAM and DBAM applicationrequired data extractions, manipulations and exchange of processedinformation within and between all domains with access and data exchangepermissions explicitly authorized by all domains, and managed atrepeatable quality of service levels for all interoperating components.The subscriber domain independently manages the information systemsenvironment for a given subscribing enterprise. The environment, inaddition to the hardware topography mentioned, includes mission criticalenterprise software applications such as an SAP ERP, Siebel CRM, OracleFinancials, DB2 mounted on application, database, or cluster servers.These software applications represent the requisite data source andcompute resource elements within the subscriber necessary to effectivelyfunction with the DBAM domain, and must be explicitly configured (withaccess permissions and file or data element export permissions) and beresource prioritized to react to function calls from the DBAM domain.Optionally, additional critical enterprise applications, provided bythird party application service providers may be included within thesubscriber domain, but must also function with access permissions, dataconfidentiality submit to resource prioritization by the DBAM domain.The third party domain, defined but not limited to service providersincorporating and embedding DBAM services within custom value addservices of their own, may maintain independent or partial control overthe information systems environment of the provider depending on how theDBAM domain interface is defined. The environment, in addition to thehardware topography and mission critical software applicationsmentioned, may embody standard or custom software applications whichprovide the support platform for various value add services sold tosubscribers. The DBAM service provider domain interface may requiresignificant handshaking between DBAM and service provider softwaredepending on the level of proprietary subscriber information or relianceon DBAM processing capability. In these cases, DBAM may require serviceprovider domain access permissions and resource priority control. Whereservice provider applications are independent and do not require aquality of service level from interoperating systems, DBAM may exert nocontrol over the third party domain and may simply function to exchangeinformation asynchronously.

In the preferred embodiment, Grid Technologies and the Globus Toolkit(version 3.0 or later) would be used to enable all three functionaldomain hardware and software platforms for DBAM and applicationfunctions to be comprehensively deployed across existing dissimilarhardware and software platforms for centralized DBAM control of criticalaccess, proprietary information management and quality of serviceconsiderations.

FIG. 15 is a diagram of a preferred embodiment of the DBAM engineapplication and software architecture. It is not meant to be limiting inanyway.

DBAM Engine and application software functionality is realized on thebasis of a series of interoperating layers of software beginning withresident hardware specific application software and observe DBAM QoS,synchronization, security and access mandates. In the preferredembodiment of DBAM, Grid Technologies supporting the Globus Toolkit (3.0or later release), the Java Commodity Grid Toolkit (version compatiblewith Globus Toolkit 3.0 or later release), the Grid ApplicationFramework for Java, and J2EE are software elements used to construct anddeploy the DBAM application. Within the preferred embodiment at theinfrastructure layer, hardware specific application software, such asfor IBM series z eservers is Globus Toolkit (3.0 or better) enabled,meaning the software is configured to recognize Grid services associatedwith standard resource reservation, access, instantiation or othercustom Grid services functions. Hardware enabled with Grid capabilitymay be registered with the DBAM engine for utilization within the DBAMand DBAM application operations. At the web services or businessapplication integration layer, core or base Grid services, including butnot limited to, functions for resource management, workload management,reservations monitoring, data management are incorporated from theGlobus Toolkit (3.0 or later release) and coexist with Websphere orSunOne environments to manage data manipulation tasks within missioncritical enterprise applications. More complex, high level custom Gridservices used to support DBAM and DBAM applications through themanipulation of standard, core, or custom core Grid services aredeveloped based on the Java Commodity Grid Toolkit (version compatiblewith Globus Toolkit 3.0 or later). Optionally, above the services layer,DBAM may of a layer of software which serves to abstract gridinfrastructure interfacing functions from the application layer (above).The Grid Application Framework for Java (version compatible with GlobusToolkit 3.0 or later) is utilized to construct this software layer.Above the services or Grid abstraction layers, the DBAM and DBAMapplications are developed based on J2EE.

Foregoing described embodiments of the invention are provided asillustrations and descriptions. They are not intended to limit theinvention to precise form described. In particular, it is contemplatedthat functional implementation of invention described herein may beimplemented equivalently in hardware, software, firmware, and/or otheravailable functional components or building blocks including but notlimited to portable or handheld wireless communications and/or computingand storage devices, and that networks may be wired, wireless, or acombination of wired and wireless. Other variations and embodiments arepossible in light of above teachings, and it is thus intended that thescope of invention not be limited by this Detailed Description, butrather by Claims following.

I claim:
 1. A method for discrete business activity management (DBAM),comprising: configuring over a network by a first computer system, aDBAM engine comprised in a second single or plurality of computersystems and functionally oriented above a Grid framework and below abusiness application layer within the Grid, to generate a universalbusiness activity mosaic; causing the generated universal businessactivity mosaic to span two or more networked entity domain nodes withone or more processors and one or more storage devices; extracting afirst data at a first time index from a first node, and a second data ata second time index from a second node; wherein the said extracting iscaused to occur at a predefined time index from all designated streamsof continuously generated and registered business attribute data relatedto same attribute parameter from two or more different entity domainnodes formatted in one or more independent taxonomies; intermediatingeach node's attribute data, by polling a single or plurality of computeor storage resources for changes in said registered attribute datacontext or taxonomy for relay to an attribute parameter log module,thereby assuring consistent meaning of each node's attribute parametersemantics and schemas; projecting each extracted data to the predefinedtime index by assigning a singular representative time index acrossmultiple domain nodes, thereby harmonizing the intermediated attributedata; and translating and assembling common, harmonized attribute databetween a plurality of identified heterogeneous domains; identifying innear real time or real time, a collective state which the assembledattribute data represents at the predefined time index; by invoking asingle or plurality of parametric representations comprising a single orplurality of asset parameter relationships acquired during saidintermediating of each node's attribute data; and translating theidentified attribute data back to a context of each heterogeneous domainby reversing to the context of each registered domain reference.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising the step of: allowingsynchronization by representing the data that is executed by projectingeach extracted data to the predefined time index.
 3. The method of claim2, further comprising the step wherein synchronization uses eachattribute parameter log polled during extraction to adjust for timechanging events for each attribute occurring between the time index andactual extraction time.
 4. The method of claim 2, further comprising thestep of: synchronizing the data for combining into the business mosaicby concatenating a given attribute parameter data extraction with priorextractions for same attribute parameter data element using best fitmathematical algorithms to provide an updated profile that quantifies abusiness attribute's behavior over time for a given subscribing businessentity; integrating profiles for a single extracted attribute parameter,over all mapped business partner entities with same time index; andrendering a completed entity reference mosaic comprising conditioningthe integrated profile of extracted data for a given attribute parameterby using advanced mathematical modeling techniques to provide astochastic representation in a forward projection for an attributeparameter from a given time index.
 5. The method of claim 4, furthercomprising the step of processing the data for errors and data elementintegrity, wherein data element integrity comprises data accuracy whichcomprises reconciliation of data syntax errors, data semantic errors,data content, manipulation errors, and extraction errors.
 6. The methodof claim 1, further comprising the step of: registering an entity to ahost by determining preferences, wherein preferences comprise:subscriber specified applications, configurations, access privileges,privacy domains, mosaic generation frequency, and partner relationships.7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of expandingregistration preferences to comprise: entity and services registration,business partner registration, resource and access permissionsregistration, and attribute registration.
 8. The method of claim 5,further comprising the step of: harmonizing into a predefined format,wherein the said harmonizing comprises synchronizing attribute parameterdata that has been translated from one taxonomy to another between twosubscriber entities.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising thestep of combining translated data, whereby translation is completed bysource translation, data integration and data conditioning forconfidential export between entities.
 10. The method of claim 9, furthercomprising the step of processing the data for errors and data elementintegrity, wherein data element integrity comprises data accuracy whichcomprises reconciliation of data syntax errors, data semantic errors,data schema errors, data content, and manipulation errors.
 11. Themethod of claim 8, further comprising the step of: filtering businessattribute parameter profile data within a subscriber entity referencemosaic wherein the said filtering is based on proprietary contentrestricted by preferences of the subscriber.
 12. The method of claim 11,further comprising the step of: routing filtered business attributeparameter profile data from a subscriber to one or more mappedsubscriber business partner privacy domains.
 13. The method of claim 12,further comprising the step of: concatenating routed attribute parameterdata from one or more subscribers with matching attribute data from eachmapped business partner at the same time index, to complete eachentity's time indexed reference mosaic frame, and updating its entityreference mosaic.
 14. The method of claim 13, further comprising thestep of: combining two or more time indexed entity mosaics for a singleor plurality of partners with entity reference mosaics to create auniversal business activity mosaic.
 15. The method of claim 14, furthercomprising the step of: designating the DBAM engine to function with anautonomic application interface control function for exchange ofattribute data with all DBAM applications.
 16. A system for discretebusiness activity management (DBAM) comprising: a first computer systemcomprising: a processing unit; a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium coupled to the processing unit; encoded instructionsstored in the computer readable storage medium, which when implementedby the processing unit, cause the first computer system to: configureover a network, a DBAM engine comprised in a second single or pluralityof computer systems and functionally oriented above a Grid framework andbelow a business application layer within the Grid, and to generate auniversal business activity mosaic; wherein the generated universalbusiness activity mosaic is caused to span two or more networked entitydomain nodes wherein each node comprises one or more processors and oneor more storage devices; extract a first data at a first time index froma first node, and a second data at a second time index from a secondnode; wherein the said extracting is caused to occur at a predefinedtime index from all designated streams of continuously generated andregistered business attribute data related to same attribute parameterfrom two or more different entity domain nodes and formatted in one ormore independent taxonomies; intermediate each node's attribute data, bypolling a single or plurality of compute or storage resources forchanges in said registered attribute data context or taxonomy for relayto an attribute parameter log module, thereby assuring consistentmeaning of each node's attribute parameter semantics and schemas;project each extracted data to the predefined time index, by assigning asingular representative time index across multiple domain nodes therebyharmonizing the attribute data; based on the projected extracted data,translate and assemble common, harmonized attribute data between aplurality of identified heterogeneous domains; identify in near realtime or real time, a collective state which the assembled attribute datarepresents at the predefined time index by invoking a single orplurality of parametric representations comprising a single or pluralityof asset parameter relationships acquired during said intermediating ofeach node's attribute data; and translate the identified attribute databack to a context of each heterogeneous domain by reversing to thecontext of each registered domain reference.
 17. The system of claim 16wherein the DBAM engine further comprises an autonomic administrativesoftware architecture which causes the DBAM engine to: control the DBAMfunction within and between a subscriber and a third party domain; andwherein the subscriber and third party domain is configured to executeDBAM functions using a thin client or equivalent.
 18. The system ofclaim 17, further comprising: the DBAM domain embedded within a thirdparty domain, wherein the third party domain further comprises standardsoftware applications as a service, custom software applications as aservice, networked in a platform for sale to entities within thesubscriber domain.
 19. The system of claim 18 wherein the administrativesoftware architecture comprised in the DBAM engine is caused to checkfor errors to insure Data Element Integrity, wherein data elementintegrity comprises data accuracy which comprises reconciliation of datasyntax errors, data semantic errors, data schema errors, data content,manipulation errors, and extraction errors.
 20. The system of claim 19,wherein the first computer system is caused to transfer synchronized andtranslated input or output content outside the said system, within agiven privacy domain, by wired and a wireless network, and wherein thesaid synchronized and translated input or output content is harmonizedinput or output content.
 21. The method as in claim 1 wherein auniversal business activity mosaic further comprises the step ofproviding quantified assessments of differentiated attribute states thatare universally viewable from any entity reference point via a Gridframework which provides supervisory management, wherein the universalbusiness activity mosaic is defined in time by synchronously indexedreference mosaic frames.
 22. The method as in claim 21 whereinsupervisory management comprises control of synchronous extraction,conditioning, translating, filtering of proprietary content and routingof business attributes parameters between business partners; and whereinsaid business attributes parameters comprise at least one of harmonizedattribute data and translated heterogeneous domain data.